Ships belonging to member associations of the Federation of Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners (LÍÚ) will remain at the country’s docks until the end of this week in protest of the government’s fishing quota bill.
Fishing in Iceland. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
A solidarity meeting of fishing vessel owners and employees of the fishing industry is scheduled tomorrow. “Closer cooperation with authorities and more thorough work methods will be called for,” information officer of LÍÚ Hlynur Sigurðsson told Fréttablaðið.
CEO of fisheries company Brim Guðmundur Kristjánsson and Minister of Fisheries Steingrímur J. Sigfússon exchanged views at a meeting in Reykjavík yesterday where the bill and their possible impact on the operations of fisheries companies were discussed.
Guðmundur stated that fishing vessel owners are of the opinion that the fishing tariffs included in the government’s bill will harm their operations by discouraging new investments and undermining the rationality of fishing certain species. He also believes that the tariffs will cut the wages of fishermen.
Guðmundur called for the viewpoints of fishing vessel owners to be taken into account. Steingrímur responded that various different viewpoints had been considered when making the bill, as could be seen in changes made to earlier drafts.
The minister stated that most fisheries companies were capable of handling the fishing tariffs, stressing that the gross profit of the fishing industry is estimated to increase with the new bill.
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