Norway’s salmon industry says continued uncertainty of tax hike having damaging effects

Salmon companies in Norway continue to criticize a 40 percent resource tax on aquaculture operations in the country, calling on the government to make a more predictable tax scheme even as the tax took effect on 1 January.  

The proposed resource tax had an immediate chilling effect on the salmon aquaculture industry in Norway when it was first announced in 2022, with companies laying off workers and cancelling planned farming permit purchases and license-capacity purchases as investment in the industry was put on hold. Now, companies are continuing to grapple with the tax – which was debated and adopted by Norway’s Storting in December 2022 – and have issues with how some of the information has been handled.

In public comments submitted to the government on 4 January, Mowi ASA pointed out that how the tax would actually be applied has continued to shift. In multiple press releases over multiple months, the company said, it has remained unclear whether the Ministry of Finance would be applying the tax based on a standard price pulled from stock exchange prices on Nasdaq or the real price obtained by the company …

Photo courtesy of Cermaq