Peru fish exports up 5.6 percent in March

Peru's fish exports totalled US$20.3 million in March, up 5.6 percent over the export total of US$198.1 million in March last year, the Ministry of Production (Produce) announced.

The volume exported grew by 10.7 percent to 220,800 tonnes from last year's total of 199,500 tonnes, mainly linked to increased sales of fish oil and fishmeal.

According to the statistics, the month of March saw 167, 000 tonnes of fishmeal exported compared to 145, 000 tonnes in the same month last year. Of the total volume exported, 65.5 percent consisted of traditional fishmeal, 28 percent of prime fishmeal, and 6.5 percent of super prime fishmeal.

Exports for March 2009 also consisted of 31,900 tonnes of frozen seafood products, mainly consisting of giant squid, squid, mackerel, shrimp and parrot, which together accounted for 90.6 percent of total exports.

China, Spain, Japan, South Korea, the US, Italy, Russia, Ecuador, France and Morocco were the key markets for 83.5 percent of frozen product exports.

Canned exports in the third month amounted to 3,200 tonnes, a volume which reflects a fall of 36 percent against the 5,000 tonnes exported the year before.

Total seafood exports accounted for 573,200 tonnes between January and March, which when compared to the previous year's total of 632,300 tonnes for the same period, signifies a 9.3-percent decline.

In terms of value, seafood exports totalled US$552.7 million through the first three months of 2009, which reflects a decrease of 12.1 percent when compared to the US$630.9 million generated last year.