That's the verdict of John Risley, director and founder of the Nova Scotia based Clearwater Seafoods Partnership who says that Russia and Asia could provide the ideal platform for sustained growth.

Mr Risley said growth could not come from increased production because that was limited by nature and fishing controls. "Growth has to come from higher prices and that requires a huge marketing effort around the world,"he said recently.

Speaking just before the lobster season opened in south west Nova Scotia, he said: "We want people who will pay more for our lobsters and scallops."

Mr Risley's company is already in the export market and started selling live lobsters into the UK and Europe by air some years ago. Clearwater is also a major producer of specialty shellfish such as crab, scallops and prawns and now has sales offices in at least two Asian countries.

He told a recent business meeting that future growth lay with those countries with large populations to feed - and they included Russia, China, Japan and India which itself is becoming a major seafood producer in its own right.

The big problem facing Canadian East Coast seafood companies is that lobster prices have been running at a low level in the past few weeks which also prompted Richard Doucet, Fisheries Minister of New Brunswick province to urge producers to look to the other side of the world for new markets instead of just trying to sell on the quayside..

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