Ecuador shrimp prices hit more than three-year high
Ecuador's second-highest monthly export total was helped by a welcome uplift in orders from China, the South American nation's largest export market by far for shrimp.
Ecuador shrimp prices hit their highest level since March 2018 as the South American nation's producers recorded their second highest monthly export total last month.
Prices in September reached $3.00 (€2.58) per pound for the first time in three and a half years.
Jose Antonio Camposano, president of shrimp producers trade body the National Chamber of Aquaculture (CNA) said a number of factors are behind the price increase.
"Demand in various markets plus expectation of demand in markets whose stocks are likely to be depleted before the holidays. Increased costs also contributes to this situation."
Shipments overseas worth $493 million (€423 million) totaled 164.3 million pounds.
Consignments to China totaled nearly 91 million pounds, a 91 percent increase over the same month last year, and the best since November 2020, when 94 million pounds were shipped to the Asian powerhouse nation.
Both numbers are still some way off the monthly record for shipments to China of 116 million pounds in May last year.
September numbers were also bolstered by very sharp increases in orders from Spain and the United Kingdom.
Over the past year, Ecuador has been trying to diversify its export destinations to wean itself off a reliance on Chinese shrimp business.
In the first nine months of the year, Ecuador's worldwide shrimp exports were 21 percent ahead of the same period last year at 1.33 billion pounds, worth close to $3.5 billion (€ 3 billion).
By the same token, exports to China edged up 1 percent to 586 million pounds.
The export numbers come in the same week as the shrimp industry ratchets up the pressure on the government to implement measures to help producers increase liquidity by offsetting the higher costs of doing business during the pandemic, and subsequent rises in energy and shipping costs that have hurt firms in all sectors across the world.
"The export sector is once again facing a complex situation due to the increase in costs that reduce its ability to compete every month," Camposano said.
"It is time to manage this new problem efficiently and for this, the state must be present with policies that strengthen competitiveness and avoid at all costs making production even more expensive."
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