Coastal towns to receive record £331 from salmon auctions
Norway’s Aquaculture Fund looks set to pay out NOK 4.7bn – £331m – this year to coastal communities.
The payment is the largest since the Fund was set up and is due to the exceptional prices paid at auction for fish farming licences.
Fisheries and Oceans Minister Marianne Sivertsen Næss (pictured) said the coalition government was also ensuring that the host local authority areas should receive a larger share of the value creation from the fish farming industry.
-She added: “The government has always said that the host municipalities should come out better after we introduced land rent tax on aquaculture. The result is that the municipalities get more money to offer welfare services for their residents.”
Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said: “We have been clear throughout that we must ensure that the local communities along the coast are left with more of the gain when they make their natural resources available to the farming industry.
He added: “The aquaculture fund, and its facilities, have been an important piece in this. Now we can clearly see that the plan is working. Today, the money comes back to the coastal communities instead of large parts being sent out of the country as dividends.”
This year’s record payout is significant because Norway faces a general election unless than a year and the Labour-Centre Party coalition is keen to win back the coastal community support it lost in the municipal elections a year ago.
A Conservative-led coalition, which has promised to scrap the salmon tax, is currently ahead in the polls, but the gap is not huge and a tough fight is expected.
