- Closing Aasiaat's shrimp factory will hit many companies hard

- The factory is of enormous importance to Aasiaat. If it closes, it will hit many companies in Aasiaat that service the factory and the fishing vessels hard. There is no doubt about that. That is why we hope the factory will not close, says Søren Hansen, chairman of Greenland's Chamber of Commerce, GE, in Region Disko to Sermitsiaq.

He is the head of the logistics and transport company Blue Water Greenland's branch in Aasiaat.

A few weeks ago, the Polar Seafood-owned company Polar Raajat announced the closure of the city's shrimp and fish factory in the autumn.

This will happen unless the Greenlandic government finds a political solution, said Bent Salling, CEO of the fishing giant Polar Seafood Greenland, who is also chairman of Polar Raajat.

Aasiaat will face a major shortage of new jobs

Several hundred people in Aasiaat currently make a living through their work at the town's largest workplace, Polar's factory with 116 employees, as well as in service and craft businesses that in various ways make a living from services to the factory.

Aasiaat has approximately 3,000 inhabitants. It is the largest town in the Municipality of Qeqertalik, which has 6,500 inhabitants.

According to Søren Hansen, it will therefore lead to a major shortage of new jobs in the town if the board of directors of the shrimp and fish factory Polar Raajat, as announced during the autumn, pulls the handbrake, closes production and thus the factory.

Søren Hansen: - It's huge

He points out that Aasiaat, in contrast to the tourist town of Ilulissat, is an industrial town that primarily lives off fishing and transport.

- This is huge. It's all the activities related to the sea that drive the town of Aasiaat. For example, there are 150 fishing vessels, ranging from small dinghies to large cutters that supply the Polar factory.

- Aasiaat has a lot of companies that service fishing vessels. The companies buy provisions, oil, and have repairs done for the vessels. And then they change crews in town, says Søren Hansen.

Blue Water Greenland in Aasiaat, of which he is the manager, is responsible for the many fishing vessel unloadings of shrimp to the factory and has a dozen or so unskilled employees working on it.

- Blue Water employees therefore risk their jobs if the factory closes, he says.

Purchases of over 160 million kroner in 2025

Last year, Polar Raajat in Aasiaat had purchases of shrimp, halibut, cod, crab and roe of 140 million kroner. The factory's 100 or so employees paid just over seven million kroner in taxes.

Last year, the factory received a total of 164 million kroner in purchases. Of this, halibut and cod accounted for 17 million, crabs for just over four million and roe for 1.5 million kroner. This meant that the purchase of shrimp accounted for the majority of the total purchase.

The employees received 35 million kroner in wages and paid 7.3 million in municipal taxes to the Municipality of Qeqertalik in 2025. Companies in Aasiaat had a turnover of 28 million kroner on deliveries to the fish factory.

This is shown by a statement from Polar Raajat on the factory's economic importance for Aasiaat, which the company sent to the municipal council of the Municipality of Qeqertalik and the Greenland Self-Government.