OSLO: Norway’s seafood industry, especially salmon, is starting the New Year off with even more record high prices and strong demand. Salmon prices are also expected to rise by another 10 percent in the first half of this year, and the industry is considered one of the country’s most secure.
“It looks like 2017 will be even better than our record year in 2016,” Piotr C Wingaard, sales director for Fish Pool, told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) this week. Fish Pool sells salmon in the spot market, where the price for Norwegian salmon is NOK 72 per kilo, much higher than the earlier record prices set in 2016. He thinks the “salmon party” will continue through next year at least.
He noted that production in 2017 will be a bit higher than in 2016, “but the increase will be so little that the market isn’t fully satisfied.” The re-opening of the Chinese market, after Norway and China normalized diplomatic relations just before Christmas, will also boost demand.
“I actually haven’t any idea about salmon prices, we’re just producing here,” Inger Marie Pedersen, who works in Marine Harvest’s salmon processing plant at Eggesbønes south of Ålesund, told DN. She’s born and reared in Eggesbønes and is now raising her own family there, thanks to the jobs the salmon industry is providing. Called oppdrett (fish farming), it remains controversial because of a lice problem at offshore farms that has threatened Norway’s wild salmon as well. Efforts continue to rid the industry of lice, though, and Norwegian salmon remains one of the country’s biggest export products.
“This is a safe and secure business that’s growing,” Pedersen told DN. “These local jobs (often in outlying areas where Norway needs economic activity) mean a lot for folks, especially when times are tough in the oil business.”
