Why Iceland Imports Ice
Because of its remote location and unfavorable climate, like many northern islands, Iceland relies heavily on imports for many products including oil, wheat, vegetables and other food. This means that things are very expensive in Iceland, and correspondingly Icelandic people enjoy some of the highest salaries in the world. This leads to high labor cost and anything that is manufactured in Iceland eventually turns out to be expensive as well. It’s a vicious circle.
It turns out that ice imported from other countries are as much as forty percent cheaper than ice produced in Iceland, despite the fact that electricity is incredibly cheap in Iceland because of the country’s abundant hydroelectric and geothermal resources. So Iceland imports tons of ice from Norway, Britain and even the United States. This ice is sold to grocery stores to keep produce as well as meat and fish fresh.
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