Norway seafood exports march on to new record

Published: 05 August, 2010

THE growth in Norwegian seafood exports seems unstoppable. The latest figures published today show overseas sales of both farmed and wild caught fish soared by over 15 per cent to a record 3.8 billion kroners (around £380 million sterling).

This is the ninth consecutive month that growth has been recorded.For the seven first months of this year the value of exported seafood was 27.9 billion kroners (32.8 billion) . This is four billion kroners higher than for the same period last year, according to the Norway Export Council for Fish.

Salmon is clearly the big favourite with exports totalling 565 million kroners ( about £56 million) last month) making a total for salmon alone of 16.6 billion kroners for the year so far - a rise of 30 per cent.

At the Humber Seafood Summit in Grimsby last month Terj Martinusson, managing director of the Norwegian Seafood Export Council, said he confidently expected exports to hit the 50 billion kroner (£5 billion) mark by the end of the year. France is a major market, but there is growing demand for Norwegian fish in Russia and Eastern European countries such as Poland. During the first quarter of this year Russia bought salmon worth 568 million kroner (about £58 million) from Norway. Russia is now the largest market for salmon outside the European Union.

The other big plus for Norway is that its north east Arctic cod and haddock fishery has been certified as sustainable under the Marine Stewardship Council. Some 125,000 metric tons of cod and 90,000 tons of haddock from this region can now display the MSC blue ecolabel.

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