Countries

The fisheries sector in Latvia is multifaceted and is represented by fishing, processing, trading, and fish farming. The fishing segment relies on the Latvian coastline that has a length of 500 km along the Gulf of Riga and the Baltic Sea as well as 2,400 sq. km of inland waters.

A number of fish species are produced by the fish farming sector in Latvia, but of the species where data is publicly available only three or four are produced in significant quantities. These include carp, sturgeon and rainbow trout. The volumes produced of other species, including tench, crucian carp, and pike, are between 10 and 15 tonnes a year. Rainbow trout production jumped in 2014, the last year for which data is available, by a factor of 9 from the year before, from 4 tonnes to 35 tonnes. The huge increase in production is all the more impressive if one considers that average annual production for the 10 years to 2013 was 4.3 tonnes.

The Latvian seafood processing sector produces a wide variety of products based on locally sourced as well as imported raw materials. Although per capita consumption of fish and seafood at 16 kg per capita is below the EU average (23 kg/capita), local supermarkets offer an impressive range of products – canned, smoked, salted, marinated, and fresh using many different species.

Aquaculture in Latvia consists primarily of the production of common carp farmed in earthen ponds. The volume of fish produced has remained broadly stable for the last decade at about 500 tonnes. Although carp production still dominates the total output from the aquaculture sector, its relative importance has gradually decreased over the last decade, from about nine tenths of the total production to about three fourths. The reason is the gradual increase in the production of other species including rainbow trout, sturgeon, crucian carp and pike. Production of these species has led to 26% increase in the total farmed fish production in the decade to 2014 to 680 tonnes.

The Latvian fleet is active in the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Riga, coastal waters, and also in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of western Africa. In the Baltic Sea the main catch in terms of volumes is of sprat followed by herring, cod, and flounder. In the Gulf of Riga on the other hand, Baltic herring is the primary catch followed by European smelt, while the coastal fishery targets mostly herring and flounder.

The fish market at Chioggia is one of the biggest in the region. Transport bottlenecks constrain its expansion and the authorities would like to move it to an area that is better connected to the road network.

The Italian aquaculture sector has a long history starting first in the coastal lagoons and then, as technology became available, expanding both inland and along the coast. While the freshwater production of trout is in terms of volume by far the most important, other freshwater species such as sturgeon and eels are also produced in significant volumes.

A Croatian producer of seabass and seabream has used a high quality product and good service to create a reputation on the Italian market.

Inland waters in Serbia comprise rivers, of which the Danube (the longest), Sava, and Tisza are navigable, two natural lakes and several artificial lakes. These resources support a commercial freshwater fishery, a recreational fishery, as well as an aquaculture industry. The freshwater fishery in Serbia is organized on 65,980 km of rivers and streams and about 150 artificial lakes and reservoirs. The northern parts of Serbia have 30,000 km of canals, which are also suitable for fishing.

Riccardo Rigillo, General Director, Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Policies represents Italy in the negotiations on a multinational, multiannual management plan for the Central Mediterranean. A plan is necessary to safeguard certain valuable stocks, such as crustaceans, and to point fisheries in the Mediterranean in the direction of sustainability.