May 23, 2018
Thailand transforms into a large fish importer
Thailand has become one of the world's largest fishery exporters, but an increasing shortage of domestic raw materials has driven this Southeast Asia country to become a large importer of fish products to serve its fishery processing for export.
A seafood report on Thailand released early this month by the US Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service says that raw material sourced from both the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Thailand are decreasing year by year and that the industry increasingly relies on imported raw material such as pollock, salmon, and other white - and red-meat fish.
Thailand's fishery product imports totaled US$3.4 billion last year, up 16% from 2016's level. China was the largest supplier of fishery products to Thailand with $380.2 million in value, followed by India at $268.7 million, Taiwan at $256.3 million, Vietnam at $229.3 million, and the US at $229.2 million. Imports from these five supplying countries account for 40% of total fishery product imports, according to the report.
The report says Thailand's fresh/chilled fish imports in 2017 increased 30% to $229.2 million from 2016's level. Major suppliers of fresh/chilled fish imports were Myanmar, with 37% market share, Norway (33%) and Malaysia (14%).
Frozen fish are the main products in Thailand's fishery imports. They totalled $2.1 billion in 2017. The top five suppliers in 2017 were Taiwan ($252 million), the US ($183 million), China ($164 million), India ($160 million) and Japan ($124 million).
Thailand also imports fish fillets and other fish meat from Vietnam, the US and Norway, altogether accounting for about three-quarters of total fish fillets and other fish meat imports.
Thailand's crustaceans imports (including crabs, lobsters, rock lobsters, shrimps and prawns) totalled $213 million in 2017, up 28% from the 2016 level. Major suppliers of crustaceans to Thailand are Argentina, accounting for 25% market share, followed by India 9%, and Canada and Myanmar (8% each).
