EU export quota hold back growth for emerging fish industry

TIRANA, March 9 – Albania’s emerging fish processing industry has been suffering in the past few years as its rapid growth has led to companies meeting the EU duty free export quotas in only seven months, paralyzing work and investment in an industry that employs about 4,000 to 5,000 people and produces the country’s top agricultural exports. As the number of fish processing companies has increased to 10, the annual quota of 1,600 metric tons of duty free exports of processed fish set by the EU was met for the first eight months of the year in 2016 and is…