A Canada-European free trade agreement may be controversial in some quarters, but it bodes well for the province’s seafood exports, says the chief executive officer for Clearwater Seafoods Inc.
The potential elimination of high tariffs on Canadian seafood imports as a result of a trade agreement with the European Union “would give East Coast fisheries a level playing field,” Ian Smith said in an interview Monday.
“The main ones to benefit would be shrimp, lobster and scallop.”
The EU currently slaps import tariffs of 20 percent on processed lobster (16 percent for live lobster), 20 percent on cooked and peeled shrimp (12 percent if it’s frozen at sea) and about six per cent on scallops.
Despite these high tariffs, Europe is currently the second biggest market for Nova Scotia seafood, just behind the United States.
Click here to read the full story from The Chronicle Herald >
