Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Foodstuff, Markets and Companies

"The producer organisations owned by Estonian fishermen are so successful at markets that in order to get fresh fish, Finnish trawling ship companies have been bought and a large part of the Finnish quota is unloaded in Estonia," says agriculture ministry fisheries management department head Madis Reinup about the new trend.

"This is one of the few examples where the flow of investments is in the other direction," confirms Estonian Fishermen's Union head Mart Undrest. “Estonians have done that in the past 2-3 year especially."

Undrest points out several reasons: fishing quota is decreasing and Estonian fish industries need more raw material. Also in Finland fishermen are already elderly men and young people are not entering the trade.

Undrest said that fish products from Estonian industries go for feeding people but in Finland the share of fish products processed into fodder is high.

Thus 4-5 Estonian trawling ship companies shave bought a dozen ships registered in the Finnish fishing shops registry. "There is no quota, thus we just had to buy," says OÜ Morobell CEO and major owner Raivo Baum. Morobell has three so-called Finnish ships and they all fish in Finnish waters. "The future will show if that investment pays off but we are satisfied for now," he said.

Finns have a lot of regulations in place to protect their fishing industry, for example it is fixed exactly how much fish can be unloaded in Finland and how much elsewhere. Thus a part of fish the Estonian companies have caught is unloaded in Finland and brought to Estonia by trucks and ferries.