Processed goods

If materials from other countries than Norway or a country that is contractual party (i.e. third-country materials) are used in the production of a finished product, these materials must have undergone sufficient working or processing in Norway or a country that is a contractual party in order for the finished product to be assigned an origin in Norway or a country that is a contractual party.

Insufficient working or processing (minimal operations)

Not all operations are regarded as sufficient in order for a product to be able to a achieve a status of origin. The various agreements provide an overview of the processes which are considered to be insufficient. The question of insufficient working (what is regarded as production) is important for the use of the tolerance rule, accounting separation and European accumulation.

Among other things, the following processes are considered insufficient working or processing:

• Treatment intended to keep the product in its original condition during transport or storage
• Simple procedures such as assembly, sorting, washing and cutting;
• Change of packaging, splitting and putting together of packages;
• Simple packaging;

Combinations of such operations are also not to be considered sufficient working or processing.

All processing conducted in both Norway and/or a country/region that is a contractual party of a given product shall be assessed together.

Insofar as fish is concerned, this means, among other things, that freezing, sorting by size and quality, splitting blocks into smaller units or packaging and changing packaging alone is not to be considered as sufficient working or processing. Regardless of these process, as mentioned before, all fish and fish raw materials must be produced entirely.

Controlled processes which are aimed at creating a new product do not fall within the scope of these rules. As a result, among other things,

• Filleting;
• Smoking;
• Production of salted fish, stockfish and clipfish;
• Cleaning of Shrimp

can be regarded as sufficient working or processing.

However, the simple placement of fish in brine shall not be considered to be sufficient processing.