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Challenges and opportunities: Impacts of COVID-19 on Norwegian seafood exports

Abstract

A rapidly growing literature shows that COVID-19 and the measures to contain the spread of the virus can have significant market impacts for seafood. These can be interruptions of production, or reductions in demand directly or indirectly due to supply chain challenges. In this paper we investigate the potential impacts of COVID-19 on seafood exports from Norway, the world’s second largest seafood exporter, using highly detailed data from 2016 through May 2021. These data allow us to assess upstream impacts in the seafood supply chain close to the producer level in aggregate and by main sector, impacts on the largest products, and the extent to which export firm structure and export markets served have changed. We find very few impacts in aggregate as well as for individual products, suggesting that the markets and supply chains used by Norwegian seafood exports were sufficiently robust and flexible to accommodate the shocks created by COVID-19. Given Norway’s size as a seafood exporter, the impact of COVID-19 has likely been moderate upstreams for a number of seafood sectors around the world, especially those in wealthy nations, with opportunities balancing out challenges, and that the supply chains have been highly resilient.
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Category

Academic article

Language

English

Author(s)

  • Frank Asche
  • Hans-Martin Straume
  • Taryn M. Garlock
  • Ulf Johansen
  • Sturla Furunes Kvamsdal
  • Rune Nygård
  • Ruth Beatriz Pincinato
  • Ragnar Tveterås

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Ocean / Climate and Environment
  • BI Norwegian Business School
  • University of Stavanger
  • University of South-Eastern Norway
  • University of Florida
  • Centre for Applied Research at NHH

Year

2022

Published in

Aquatic Living Resources

ISSN

0990-7440

Volume

35

Issue

15

Page(s)

1 - 11

View this publication at Norwegian Research Information Repository