Russian salmon farmer joins 100 food producers that will get government support during coronavirus crisis.
In the wake of the coronavirus, Russia has released a list of companies which are being called “backbone organisations”.
Interfax reports that in the face of a collapse in oil prices and coronavirus pandemics the Russian government will monitor and, if necessary, consider providing support.
The list was first created for the 2008 financial crisis with 300 companies when “dozens of large companies were cut off simultaneously from credit resources due to the financial crisis, and the state had to think about saving them”.
This has now been boosted because of COVID-19, with Moscow extending a partial lockdown until May 1.
The current government ordered a special commission to renew it, with 646 organizations in the list. 80 of them are directly related to agriculture and 21 represents the food industry.
Included on that list is Russian Salmon that is planning on building a salmon processing facility in Liinakhamari, Murmansk Oblast, Russia. In 2018, SalmonBusiness reported that company group “Baltiyskiy Bereg” (Baltic Coast and Russian Salmon) were looking for a land site for the construction of a smolt factory in the Murmansk region – to end the country’s reliance on Norwegian smolt – with an aim to grow 15,000 tonnes of fish per year in the Barents Sea.
In 2015 Russian Salmon with its sister company Baltic Coast filed for bankruptcy following mass deaths and a weakened currency running up debts worth 1.5 billion rubles (EUR 11.6 million).
