Nils Christian Jensen, Managing Director TripleNine Pharma A/S:

Now the new government has stimulated growth - by introducing a new tax which will not make it any easier to operate an energy-heavy fishing company in fringe Denmark.

This means that the tax on NOx emissions will increase fivefold, on top of the already unreasonable energy taxes.

The blow will hit the entire industry, but Minister for Taxation Thor Möger Pedersen cannot see a problem - "Even if the NOx tax results in job losses, the government's overall budget will create more jobs"!

We will just have to hope that these jobs will also be created in fringe Denmark.

It is not exactly taxes we need to keep the wheels turning, but we cannot make ourselves heard. At some point enough will be enough and the total bill will mean that what Danish factories can pay for fish is not competitive for the fishermen compared with landing their fish in, for instance, Norway. Then the basis of the Danish fishmeal factories will quietly disappear.

Natura 2000

However, the taxes introduced by both the conservative and socialist factions are not the only challenges facing the industry.

England, Holland and Germany are in the process of classifying a significant part of Doggerbanke as a Natura 2000 area. Neither the area nor the associated fishing limitations have been determined yet, but there is no doubt that it will have a negative effect of sand eel fishing in the future.

2012 quotas

The negotiations with Norway are starting at the time of writing, so nothing specific can be said, but the trend is clear.

The sprat quota for the Baltic Sea has been agreed and the result is a 22 per cent reduction.

The proposal for the sprat quota for the North Sea is a reduction of 25 per cent.

The proposal for the Norway spout quota is 0 (yes zero), albeit with an option of re-evaluation in May and August.

The industry is expecting a politically determined sand eel start quota of 200,000 tons, which during 2012 will be replaced by a final quota when the results of the sand eel dredging expeditions have been analysed. The dredging expeditions will be carried out in November and December 2011.

This year, the industry has co-funded a major population investigation of mullet (also known as trumpeter). The investigations will continue, but the result of the first one suggests a large population, which has made ICES recommend that the quota for 2012 is almost tripled.

If the population assessment turns out to be accurate, mullet will be a species landed in ever increasing volumes, with the resultant challenges for factories and customers.

At this stage - and overall - nothing suggests increased quotas for Denmark in 2012 compared with 2011.

Nothing new under the sun

Sadly there is nothing new in the above. Fortunately, this industry is used to a contrary wind, but it would be nice to have a fair wind occasionally!