Bangladesh’s export earnings from frozen and live fish in the just concluded financial year 2022-23 slumped by 20.76 per cent as demand for the item decreased in the western countries due to an economic slowdown caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.
Frozen fish exporters said that shrimps were the main export products of the sector, but the price of the item witnessed a drastic fall on the global market due to the shrinking demand. According to Export Promotion Bureau data, earnings from frozen and live fish exports in FY23 declined by $110.66 million to $422.28 million compared with those of $532.94 million in the previous financial year.
The export earnings from the sector in FY23 also fell 33.39 per cent short of the government-set target of $634.00 million for the year. Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association president Kazi Belayet Hossain on Tuesday told New Age that demand for the frozen fish decreased significantly in the western countries due to high inflation.
Amid the Russia-Ukraine war the prices of food items increased all over the world, but the prices of shrimps went down as consumers were avoiding luxurious foods to cope up with the inflation, he said. The EPB data showed that export earnings from shrimps in FY23 fell by 26.27 per cent to $300.26 million compared with those of $407.25 million in FY22.
Earnings from the shrimps in the FY23 fell 39.95 per cent short of the government-set target of $500 million for the financial year. ‘Bangladesh exports black tiger variety of shrimps and the production costs of the variety are high. Now the price of the item on the global market becomes lower than the production cost,’ Belayet said. He said that it was possible shrimp exporters to remain competitive on the global market with exporting Vannamei, a non-native species of shrimps, but the sector missed the opportunity due to lack of a policy support.
After completing a successful pilot project, the government allowed commercial production of Vannamei in the country, but imposed bar on producing fry of the variety in the country, Belayet said. The production of Vannamei through importing its fry from other countries would not be cost effective, he said. Referring to the result of the pilot project, the BFFEA president said that 18,000-19,000 kilograms of the Vannamei variety could be produced on per hector, which was 20 times higher than the production rate of the local Black Tiger shrimp and freshwater prawn.