Mr. Chair, I will start first.
Good morning, everyone.
I will pick up where our Icelandic colleague ended and say that is more or less the same situation as in Norway. The biological status of our northeast Arctic cod is at present very good. The quota sizes have increased in the last 10 years from 424,000 tonnes in 2007, to 894,000 tonnes for 2016, and with the highest size in 2013 with one million tonnes as the total quota. It's worth noting that the quota has more than doubled in these 10 years, even though this stock has been classified as fully utilized in all kinds of global statistics on stock assessments. It just goes to show that there is a possibility to increase the out-take also from stocks that are classified as fully utilized through good management in accordance with the nature of the conditions.
Unlike Iceland, this cod stock is managed jointly by Norway and Russia through the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission. In our commission meetings—this year's meetings are starting today—we drew up coordinated programs for surveys and research that need to be done. The information from both the Norwegian and the Russian surveys goes through the system of producing management advice through ICES, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. The Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission does not have its own scientific body as some regional fisheries management organizations have. We receive advice directly from the international system in ICES, but the advisory committee has the last word on which advice to give managers.
Having said that, I must stress that there is a very strong history of scientific co-operation between Norway and Russia on this cod stock. The scientific co-operation was formalized in the late 1950s, so we have a history of almost 60 years of formalized scientific co-operation on surveys and other kinds of oceanographic and management science-based activities together with Russia.
This stock, as was explained from Iceland, has had its ups and downs in the 40 years since the economic zones were established. The lowest point in our history of the cod fishery was in 1989-90, and that was more or less a collapse of the cod stock, which brought forward very strong management—