September 24, 2012 — Norway is expected to increase its cod quota by a bumper 25 per cent next year, the Humber Seafood Summit was told.
Morten Jensen from the Norway Seafood Council brought a smile to the faces of local fish buyers when he said the likely cod quota from the Barents Sea is expected to be around 900,000 tons. "This area is home to the second largest recorded spawning biomass since the war, " he added.
"We expect to increase the cod quota by 25 per cent next year, although there may be a small reduction in the haddock catch. In fact we are already selling a lot of haddock through the Humber. Now we want to sell more cod to the UK with the message that it is environmentally friendly to eat Norwegian fish."
Mr Jensen said the UK was Norway's fifth largest market, but it wanted to increase its exports in Britain and, for that reason is considering opening a marketing office here. Currently UK marketing is managed from its Paris office.
Earlier, Jorgen Lund, managing director of the North Atlantic Seafood Forum, said the seafood industry was one of the most widely traded organisations in the world worth at least $125-billion a year. And despite its oil wealth, seafood was Norway's largest export commodity.