Seafood industry says Budget will "do little for aquaculture"
Geir Ove Ystmark
The industry organisation Seafood Norway has criticised the country’s revised Budget last week as more of the same and doing little for aquaculture.
Seafood Norway CEO Geir Ove Ystmark said the special tax on seafood was among the highest in the Norwegian business sector.
He added: “The production tax on aquaculture and the land rent tax will continue unchanged. The tax generated NOK 1.57 billion in 2025 — is more than budgeted.
“The CO₂ tax on the fishing fleet will continue, giving Norwegian fishermen an incentive to bunker in foreign ports.
“It has no climate effect, but it affects the access to raw materials for the industry at a time of historically low quotas.
Ystmark also pointed out that a new special tax on lost (farmed) fish — which the industry believes is legally problematic and violates the aquaculture settlement — was still in the pipeline. Low mortality already has a strong economic incentive for the industry, and the tax is therefore redundant as a policy instrument.
On the frequently criticised Norwegian price Council, he said the bureaucracy’s administrative costs were growing, while the fish farming industry was footing the bill.
Plans to strengthen the Norm price Council should be dropped.
He said Seafood Norway believed the revised national budget should have contained clear measures to strengthen Norwegian private ownership and investment willingness.
“The problem is that the trend of high taxes and fees for profitable, productive industries continues."
“This policy weakens the private environments that are supposed to create investments, jobs and innovation. It is more of the same – weakening Norway’s competitiveness at a time when we should be concerned with strengthening it,“ Ystmark said.
He maintained that the seafood industry needed predictability.
“Seafood Norway emphasizes that the seafood industry is one of Norway’s most important export and future industries, but that increased tax pressure and unpredictable framework conditions are weakening investment capacity along the entire coast,” he concluded
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