April 30, 2012

As hot weather will force early harvesting and lead to an oversupply in the market, Thailand's shrimp prices are likely to decline further, the Bangkok Post reports.

Prices have been falling for several weeks with no sign of recovery, said Suwattanachai Visetcharoen, head of the Samut Sakhon Shrimp Farming Club.

A kilogramme of small shrimp (70 head) was selling at THB103 (US$3.35) on April 25, down from THB120 (US$3.91) two weeks ago, he said, even though April is not normally a peak production period.

Local market prices have declined following the report of a huge shrimp harvest in the first quarter of 138,000 tonnes, a 15% rise from the same period of 2011.

About 200 containers of shrimp from the southern provinces enter the big Mahachai seafood market in Samut Sakhon every day, said Suwattanachai.

He has asked farmers not to rush to harvest if there is no problem of shrimp being affected by the heat. He said the oversupply situation had also slowed orders from abroad.

"At the Boston Seafood Show recently, Thai exporters were not successful in getting sales orders as buyers opted to wait for prices to fall further," he said.

Foreign traders believe Thai shrimp production this year could reach 700,000 tonnes. The Thai Shrimp Association forecast volume of 670,000 tonnes. Suwattanachai said slowing orders from major importers, the US, Europe and Japan, had also pushed down prices.

The Thai Frozen Foods Association warned that economic difficulties in major markets and competitive prices of Indonesian shrimp products were negative factors for Thai shrimp exports.

About 90% of local production of vannamei or white shrimp is exported. Thailand exported 14,700 tonnes of shrimp products to the US in the first two months, a 26% drop from the same period last year. Exports to the EU in the same period fell 12% to 5,820 tonnes, and those to Japan were down 12% to 9,626 tonnes.