No Exceedance of Registered Quota for Sevan's Sig Catch. Clarification

Ani Hakobyan, spokesperson for the Minister of Environment of Armenia, wrote on her Facebook page: “In response to the article titled ‘Tbilisi Markets Flooded with Sevan Sig. What Is the Reason?’ published by ‘Zhamanak’ newspaper, we find it necessary to clarify the following:

With the initiative of the Ministry of Environment, this year the ‘Experimental Industrial Fishing of Sig in Lake Sevan’ regulation was launched. According to this regulation, all fishermen who submitted applications in accordance with the law and subsequently signed contracts with the Ministry of Environment were engaged in industrial fishing within the legal framework, following the established procedures and quotas.

The designated quota for the experimental industrial fishing of sig was set at 300 tons. Contracts were signed with a total of 255 fishermen for the catch of approximately 236 tons of fish. Throughout the hunting season, around 204 tons of fish were caught. There has been no exceedance of the established or granted quotas.

Most of the fish caught before and after the regulation of industrial fishing is stored in frozen storage facilities and is then sold even after the end of the industrial fishing season.”