Norway's seafood exporters sold 2.4 million metric tons (MT) of fisheries and aquaculture products worth NOK 86.5 billion (USD 10.4 billion, EUR 8.8 billion) to overseas markets in the first 11 months of this year. These totals represented year-on-year increases of 6 percent and 4 percent respectively, and kept the Scandinavian country on course to surpass 2016’s record export value of NOK 91.6 billion (USD 11 billion, EUR 9.3 billion).
Indeed, with increased salmon volumes offsetting the product’s declining prices, Asbjorn Warvik Rortveit, director of market insight with the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC), said the trade body expects the total export value for the country’s seafood to exceed last year’s figure “by a comfortable margin.”
For the year to date, Norway has exported 909,000 MT of salmon worth NOK 59 billion (USD 7.1 billion, EUR 6 billion), which is just 71,000 MT and NOK 2.4 billion (USD 289.4 million, EUR 245 million) less than for the whole of 2016, although the NSC is anticipating a less lucrative last month of the year.
"We anticipate a weaker December month than last year, partly due to continued high salmon prices impacting consumers. This is especially true of the smoked salmon market, where important markets like Germany and France have seen demand decline compared to the previous year,” said Paul Aandahl, analyst with the NSC.
Norway’s cod trade has performed particularly well this year with fresh exports for January through November totaling 64,500 MT with a value of NOK 2.2 billion (USD 265.5 million, EUR 224.7 million), up 7 percent and 9 percent respectively. Its frozen cod exports, meanwhile, reached a level of 75,000 MT worth NOK 2.4 billion, which was a volume decline of 1 percent but an increase in value of 3 percent.
Over the same period, the country’s pelagic trade has been led by 253,000 MT of herring worth NOK 2.5 billion (USD 301.7 million, EUR 255.4 million) and 310,000 MT of mackerel worth NOK 3.8 billion (USD 458.7 million, EUR 388.4 million).
Its clipfish and salted fish exports reached 82,400 MT worth NOK 3.8 billion, and 27,000 MT valued at NOK 1.2 billion (USD 144.8 million, EUR 122.6 million) respectively.
