Norway heavily investing in marine economy
The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation has asked Sustainovate to make an inventory of Norwegian strategies, instruments and key players that support its BLUE ECONOMY. This memo will also assess which approach The Netherlands could follow to connect to the Norwegian strategy.
The Norwegian government’s ambition for its seafood industry* is that Norway will be the world’s leading seafood nation. Besides producing bulk seafood, Norway’s goal is to create even greater value based on ALL their marine resources through for exmaple bio-refinery and bio-technology.
Two reasons are given for a large scale and continuous investment in this industry:
1) Norway is the world’s second largest exporter of seafood, and is now exporting 33 million seafood meals to the world daily. Norwegian waters are seven times larger than its land surface, and include some of the world’s richest fish stocks. In addition, Norway has a long coastline that is very suitable for aquaculture.
2) There is a high recognition by the Norwegian political& business society that oil & gas will run out in a few decades. For that reason the country is actively developing their secondary marine industries. Even the oil & gas industry itself is investing in biofuels and seeking synergy with other blue sectors.
We can state that Norway is heavily investing in its entire BLUE ECONOMY which includes:
- Oil & Gas
- Seafood (fisheries & aquaculture)
- Bio-technology and bio-prospecting
- Maritime services ( oil/gas; pipelines; cables)
- Energy (wind-wave-hydro)
Consequently, innovation and scientific research which form the backbone of the BLUE ECONOMY are given high priority by both public and private stakeholders. For this reason the Netherlands should take advantage of Norwegian strategy on innovation and research.
* The term ‘Seafood industry’ is defined here as food, suppliers, knowledge, bio-economy and biotechnology.
