I et åpent brev sendt idag til en rekke norske lakseoppdrettere advarer den russiske fiskeriorganisasjonen om en kollaps i landets foredlingsindustri.
Brevet, som er sendt til Marine Harvest, Coast Seafood, Lerøy Seafood, NSL, SalMar, Nordlaks, Ocean Quality, Orion Seafood, FHL, Seaborn og Troika Seafood er skrevet av fungerende president i Russian Fish Association, Vitaly Kornev. iLaks har fått videresendt brevet i sin helhet fra den russiske organisasjonen.
I brevet påpekes det at de russiske foredlingsselskapene har lidd tunge tap i 2013, grunnet svært høye laksepriser. Nå frykter de russiske aktørene en kollaps i landets foredlingsindustri.
Hele brevet, stilet på engelsk, kan du lese her:
Dear colleagues,
Importers and producers in the Russian Federation are worried that the price policies of Norwegian exporters can cause fatal collapse for Russian and other European producers.
This year, the market price has been higher than anticipated, as a result of that, in the 1st half 2013, most VAP suffered heavy losses.
Prices have gone up or remained flat in the 2nd half of the year, whereas earlier the market had anticipated them to be somewhere around 30-35 NOK. We now see larger volume from Norway compared with last year, but prices seem to have no limits. In a year when producers are struggling to minimize losses, the Norwegian producers and export industry seem to work hard to maximize the prices thus limiting the possibility for VAP to cash in on December sales so they can gain a strong momentum for the next year. The working capital in the industry has decreased compared with last year due to a very tough first half-year 2013. The prices have gone up by 30-50% this year, and loans used for buying salmon have become much more expensive than last year. With no money being made, bankruptcies in Russia and Europe will be only a matter of time.
The volatility of weekly prices is very high even though higher volume should reflect lower volatility. The price mechanism today is that the prices offered the forthcoming week is only based on the balance of the supply and demand the week before. It seems to us that if 10 trucks of salmon out of 2000 are sold 2-3 NOK higher, the market price should be at least 3 NOK higher for the next week. No price discussion is based on what is going to be produced the next week. All is based on a small price decrease or price increase the week before. This mechanism is easy to manipulate and stupid to use in pricing. To get a fair price, the seller of the fish has to give true information about the volume so it is possible to get an objective idea of what the right market price should be, rather than when someone says they bought a few trucks at a high price, so the rest of the market should do the same.
This is a warning of what may happen, as worst case scenario of prices around 40 NOK or higher may destroy independent producers of salmon.
With a price around 35 NOK everyone can survive. With a price higher than 40 NOK a large part of the industry will collapse.
In this case, Norwegian producers may take over the whole value chain to the stores. If that is not their plan, they must take a cautious stand and help the struggling industry stay alive.
Vitaly Kornev,
Acting President
Russian Fish Association
