Ecuador: The shrimp sector is interested in the agreement with South Korea

Frozen Common Shrimp & Prawn

Seafood

Ecuador

South Korea

Published Feb 13, 2023

Tridge summary

The shrimp sector is especially interested in the trade agreement that is being negotiated with South Korea, a country to which they currently pay a 20% tariff. This sector had a 43% growth in its export billing, between January and November 2022, compared to the same months in 2021. The statistics of the Central Bank show it. However, for the union, the growth in dollars achieved throughout the year was more conservative (31%), and was mainly due to volume, since prices were down. For this year, the industry remains cautious about the behavior of its main market, China, which is showing a slight recovery, explains José Antonio Camposano, president of the National Chamber of Aquaculture. The business opportunity is to become more competitive. Our task of conquering new markets is permanent.

Original content

But we are at a time to defend the markets where we are present, because the situation as it is today is too difficult. This growth does not reflect the critical situation we are experiencing in 2022, therefore, the outlook for this year is conservative. The growth of an export activity is linked to the sale price and the export volume. 99% of the growth seen in 2022 was by volume, not by price, which in 2022 fell to 35%. On the other hand, the figures from the Central Bank differ from our data, because they do not consider that last year 75 million pounds of shrimp were returned from countries such as South Korea or China, due to their sanitary policies regarding Covid-19. This merchandise was reprocessed to be exported again. The Central Bank registered these products twice, when calculating the export volume. The price fell because all the countries to which we are exporting are going through serious economic problems, starting with the United States. Then, the European market, ...

Source: Primicias