On Wednesday, Norway’s government said that it plans to hike taxes on electricity manufacturers and fish farmers to increase an extra 33 billion crowns ($3 billion) a year.
The finance ministry said that the aquaculture industry and energy producers make billions of crowns on our common resources. The government is now of the view that more of the value created should go back to society.
Shares in fish farmers such as Mowi ASA, the world’s largest, Leroy Seafood Group ASA and SalMar ASA dropped on the news and were down between 15% and 19% at 0719 GMT, thereby underperforming an Oslo benchmark index which was 3.4% lower.
While Norway has the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund with $1.2 trillion, the government says it plans to cut spending from the fund next year in order to tame inflation.
The extra taxes levy a resource rent tax on aquaculture and wind power, a hike in the resource rent tax on hydropower and an extraordinary tax on wind and hydropower due to the exorbitantly high electricity prices.
The government has asserted that costs linked to taking in refugees, current public construction projects, household power subsidies and benefit payments would rise by some 100 billion crowns in 2023.
