Click here to see the programme, speakers and their presentations from the conference.

The 4th EAST WEST FISHERIES CONFERENCE was held in Tallinn, Estonia from the 13-14 November 2003.

The East-West Fisheries Conference series, organised by Agra Europe, Eurofish and in association with FAO Globefish, has attracted fishery industry executives from more than 40 producing, trading and
consumer countries.

The seafood markets in Central and Eastern Europe are growing, and there are considerable potentials for high quality seafood products, produced locally and imported.

This is one of the main messages coming from the 4th East-West Fisheries Conference – Trade & Investment in a Changing Europe – held in Tallinn 13 and 14 November 2003. The Conference was organised by EUROFISH in cooperation with Agra Europe.

As one of the main crossroads between East and West, and with Estonia becoming one of ten new EU Member states from 1st May 2004, Tallinn was the ideal setting for the Conference, attended by representatives from the industry as well as trade and governmental organisations.

The framework for trade and market developments in East and West was addressed by speakers from international institutions and from enterprises with experience in retail, production and investments in the Central and Eastern European Countries.

Against the backdrop of the EU enlargement and the growing seafood markets in Central and Eastern Europe, the Conference provided the latest available information and assessments on market developments, consumer trends and investment conditions in the CEE countries.

The speakers from the European Commission looked at the trade and regulatory developments which are foreseen to take place with the accession of the new Member States. Recent trade figures show that EU is importing higher value seafood from the accession countries. After EU accession the new member states will have new incentives to develop their industry through the common EU policies, such as the fisheries, food-health and structural policies, including the financial instruments available within these frameworks.

The potentials and challenges of Central and Eastern Europe countries were addressed by financial experts (from EBRD and KPMG Estonia) and by industry representatives. It is clear that all the region presents a largely positive outlook in terms of growth but also many challenges. Although the trends are similar there are differences between the main sub-regions of the area: the Baltic Sea Region, the Southern Eastern European countries and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The labour costs in the region are low compared to Western Europe but several speakers found that the future potentials of the region would rather be in the production of medium and high level seafood products.

Within this framework the conference pointed at several trends and opportunities in the fisheries sector. Consumption of fish products in the region would develop towards new assortments, of which salmon and tuna are showing visible growth. The Russian market represents enormous potentials, and big players in the retail sector have already indicated how these potentials will be implemented not only in Moscow but throughout the major cities in Russia. Finally the region offers considerable potentials in the aquaculture and mariculture sectors, which have already started adapting to the new market opportunities in the changing Europe.

Click here to see the programme, speakers and their presentations from the conference.