MOSCOW. July 5 (Interfax) - Eight fish farming facilities valued at $160 million are due to be built in the Kurils, head of the Russian Federal Fisheries Agency Andrei Krainy told a press conference in Moscow on Thursday.
A day earlier he returned from Sakhalin where he attended a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The meeting attendees made a number of important decisions for development of the fishing industry, he said.
"It was decided to build eight private fish farming facilities in the Kurils: six or seven in Iturup and one in Kunashir," he said.
The cost of one such facility is estimated between $10 million and $30 million, Krainy said.
Construction of these facilities is important both from the geopolitical and social point of view because it creates jobs for the inhabitants of these islands, the fisheries agency chief said.
"Business is ready to build the facilities but has asked the state to support the infrastructure, build roads. This is normal, and this problem was resolved at a meeting in Sakhalin," he said.
There are 16 fish farming facilities in Sakhalin, six of them are leased long-term to private companies, he said. Their performance indicators are good, so a decision could be made to lease other enterprises as well, Krainy said.
Asked about a possible cost of the fish farming facilities, the fisheries agency said that in the Kamchatka peninsula such an enterprise could cost between 700 million and 1.2 billion rubles.