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SOME of Iceland's fish exporters appear to be getting worried about Norway's increasing interest in the UK white fish market.
Iceland has been a major supplier of whole cod, haddock and plaice to Britain for several decades, both to the Grimsby Fish Market and directly in the form of line caught fish via air shipments to processors who supply the likes of Marks & Spencer and Waitrose.
But there has been growing pressure in Iceland to process more of the fish it catches at home in order to boost job opportunities in fish communities at home. This has worried processors on the Humber and the issue was raised when a trade delegation from Grimsby visited Iceland in September.
This has led to renewed interest from Norway which plans to increase its exports of cod and haddock next year, with the UK's 11,000 fish friers one of the main targets. It is also looking at supplying the Grimsby market - now the only large fish market on the East Coast of England.
Now the Icelandic fishing information website Fiskifrettir.is has run a short piece with the headline "Norway Threatens Our Fish Markets?" The report says that a planned huge increase in fish exports from Norway to Britain could impact on Icelandic exporters.
Thor Gudmundsson, chief executive of the Icelandic export company Saemark Ltd, warned in the Fiskifrettir report that more and more major purchasers in the UK and other markets were buying large quantities of fish from Norway. He suggests this could pose a specific threat to the Iceland fishing industry.
Saemark is one of Iceland's largest exporters handling about 50,000 tons of fish a year on behalf of the trawler owners there. The Icelandic Government is coming under pressure from some section of its fishing industry to scrap the levy on exported whole fish to the whole fish to the UK. It is also claimed that the levy is in contravention of European free trade regulations
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