Marine Harvest has announced plans to invest around £80m to grow its business and support jobs in rural communities in Scotland between 2012 to 2016.
Scottish first minister Alex Salmond met with Ole-Eirik Leroy, chairman of the Norwegian-based company, in Oslo to discuss its new ‘five-year’ plan for Scotland this week.
Following the meeting, the first minister said: “I was pleased to hear first hand about Marine Harvest’s plans for their operations in Scotland and delighted by their latest investment commitment that will benefit local communities. Clearly they are set to play a key role in our ambitions for growth in the industry, including our aim of increasing production by 50% on 2009 levels to 210,000t by 2020.”
Mr Leroy added: “With people eating more salmon and the need to sustainably increase our production, we believe that further investment in Scotland is good for our business and the Scottish economy, the communities where we operate and our consumers.”
The five-year plan could create around 100 jobs.
Marine Harvest operates 38 fish farms in Scotland supporting around 460 jobs, and is the world’s largest producer of farmed salmon, operating in 22 countries. Its Scottish business unit was highlighted as the company’s best-performing in 2011, with high production, good price achievement and good operational performance.
Scotland is currently the largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon in the European Union and third largest globally, accounting for more than one-third, by value, of Scotland's food exports.
