Following its announcement on 3 October that it would freeze investments in Norway if the country introduces a proposed 40% resource rent tax on aquaculture, salmon producer Cermaq has ended its NOK 134 million purchase of an additional 689 tonnes of maximum allowed biomass (MAB).
Cermaq Chief Sustainability Officer Lars Galtung explained: “The proposed resource rent tax om salmon farming has created considerable uncertainty among both fish farming companies and in the supplier industry sector. Reduced investments and projects on hold will result in lower activity and a risk of layoffs in the supplier industry. This will affect jobs in many coastal municipalities and will become reality for the aquaculture industry unless there are changes to the resource tax proposal.”
Cermaq bought its share of the offered capacity increase based on Norway’s traffic light system. The NOK 134 million that it paid was to be transferred to the Aquaculture Fund which is distributed to municipalities with farming sites.
“We will terminate the purchase because we do not have sufficient overview of the impact the proposal will have on future valuation and profitability,” Galtung said.
Cermaq Norway has put investments of up to NOK 4 billion on hold due to the proposal for a resource rent tax.
“Since 2016, we have invested more than NOK 5 billion in Northern Norway and had plans for investments of up NOK 4 billion in the next few years. Now we need to get an overview of the consequences of the resource rent tax before any projects can be implemented,” Galtung said.
