Press release
Shri Nilkanth Ramnath Halarnkar, Hon’ble Minister of Fisheries, Government of Goa visited Norway on Feb 28 - March 2, 2024. During the visit he addressed the Agder-India Business Seminar at Kristiansand in Southern Norway and presented the Government of Goa’s policy in the fisheries sector and for the welfare of fishermen.
2. He engaged Norwegian enterprises which work in the field of aquaculture, especially Salmon farming, to explore the possibility of developing offshore cage farming in Goa.
3. Site visit was also organised by the Business Region Kristiansand (the Commerce Department of the City Government) for the delegation to Global Ocean Technology (GOT), Mandal shipyard which specializes in manufacture of fishing vessels. They also went on board one of the latest and large deep sea fishing vessels (Sille Marie) of 67 meters which has an on board fish processing unit.
4. Thereafter, he and his delegation visited the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) at Arendal. He was given an overview of the research activities undertaken by IMR, including assessment of fish stock as well as basic research in marine ecosystem, aquaculture, fisheries, nutritions, food safety and animal welfare. The Hon’ble Minister and his team later went on board IMR’s research vessel GM Dannevig Arendal.
5. A brief site visit was also organised to a blue mussels farming at Larvik done by Norwegian Mussel Company AS. Their offshore mussel farms use New Zealand technique and smart farm technology. They are also in the process of setting up of a similar offshore mussel farms in Goa in the coming months.
6. They also visited the office of Aker Biomarine where a presentation was made on krill harvesting in Antarctica and manufacture of fish feed by them. Aker Biomarine has its presence in Chennai, India for several years and India is the third largest market for the Norwegian enterprise.
7. Visit of the Hon’ble Minister was preceded by the visit of Dr. Shamila Monteiro, Director, Directorate of Fisheries from the state of Goa , India along with a team of entrepreneurs / fishing vessels owners from Goa to Bergen and Alesund.
8. In Bergen, they visited NCE Seafood Cluster, to understand the operation of the cluster and its activities for sustainable aquaculture and fisheries.
9. Visit to NOFIMA was to engage Norwegian researchers working on innovative but natural fish feed as well as to utilize various byproducts of fish processing in a sustainable manner.
10. They visited Grieg Seafood AS, which is one of the largest offshore salmon farms and processing units. Views were exchanged on various aspects of salmon breeding and efforts made by Norwegian enterprises to reduce damage to the natural ecosystem.
11. The delegation visited Hatch Blue AS in Bergen, which specializes in providing consultancy services for aquaculture and seafood and provides pre-seed funding and incubation programs. They also had elaborated on two enterprises they were funding in India, namely Zero Circle, who use low energy green processing technology to shape seaweeds into carbon efficient solutions and Aquaconnect, which provides end-to-end solutions to shrimp and fish farmers, powered by AI & satellite remote sensing technologies.
12. Delegation also visited the control center of Blom Fisheries in Rong near Bergen, which remotely monitors all their offshore salmon farms, which are spread over several places in Norway.
13. A visit to offshore fish cages of Engesund Fiskeoppdrett AS was organised to experience the operation of open sea cages.
14. In Alesund, the delegation interacted with ship brokers and one of the largest ship design companies, VARD AS. They also visited yet another large deep sea fishing vessel which had an on-board fish processing unit including Individual quick freezing (IQF) as well as contact freezing.
15. They also visited the salmon and trout processing company, HOFSETH AS, and took a tour of their processing unit. This was followed by a visit to one of the professional fishing equipment stores Fiskevegen, where they learnt about the automatic jiggers and modern fishing equipment.
16. Shri Nilkanth Ramnath Halarnkar, Hon’ble Minister of Fisheries, Government of Goa met the Indian diaspora from Goa during his visit to Norway on Feb 28 - March 2, 2024. He enquired about their wellbeing and encouraged them to work actively for development of Goa.
