December 30, 2015

China's shrimp imports surpassed exports

Shrimp ranked second in China's seafood export category in 2014, accounting for 10.6% of the total exports, at 179,000 tonnes. As Asia's top shrimp producer, China produced 1.01 million tonnes of shrimp last year, up from 910,000 tonnes in the previous year. This is followed by Indonesia and Vietnam. The former produced 630,000 tonnes of shrimp, up from 565,000 tonnes in 2013, while the latter came in third with 509,000 tonnes of shrimp exports last year.

Though China is leading ahead other countries in terms of production volume, its growth rate is actually much slower when compared to countries like Ecuador and India. While the United States is India's main client for shrimp exports, China's exports to the United States had dropped from 42,000 tonnes in 2009 to 32,500 tonnes in 2014. This is similar to China's shrimp exports to the European region which fell from 40,200 tonnes in 2009 to 28,800 tonnes last year.

In short, China's shrimp exports had fallen 13.6% last year, but imports had increased by 10% to 78,000 tonnes. According to the official data released, Canada is the top shrimp supplier to China, followed by Ecuador.