Today's Main Story: Canada's seafood processors say foreign worker rule changes could reduce lobster processing by 25%
Canada’s lobster processors say federal changes that would limit their access to foreign workers could reduce processing across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island by as much as 25 percent. Industry representatives disagree with lawmakers that there are enough domestic workers to make up the shortfall in foreign employees that would be created under the revamped laws. “A reduction in our workforce will result in a drastic reduction in the amount of lobsters we will be able to buy and process,” said Jerry Amirault of the Lobster Processors Association of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. A moratorium on the federal rule changes has been proposed so a labor market analysis can be conducted on the amendment’s impact to the industry.
Alaskan halibut prices are either at or over $7 per pound at major ports across the state, or “back in the nosebleed range” according to Laine Welch. About 85 percent of the 16 million pound quota has been caught so far.
In other news the Russians are reviving a Soviet-era labeling system that they intend to launch first on Russian salmon. Officials said they will bring back the State Quality Mark system first used by the USSR to increase consumer trust, and hopefully sales, of domestically produced salmon supplies to counter the absence of banned Norwegian imports. After the USSR collapsed the label was renamed the Rostest Mark.
Finally, the Department of Commerce corrected the final results of its eighth antidumping duty review for Indian shrimp exporters with the addition Satya Seafoods and Usha Seafoods. The companies—which were accidentally omitted in the final report-- were added to Devi Fisheries' group of exporters, meaning they be levied a duty rate of 1.97 percent for shipments between February 1, 2012 through January 31, 2013.
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