The share prices of publicly traded shrimp companies in India have soared in the last month, and financial news service Moneycontrol is speculating that the Venezuelan government’s takeover of Grupo Lamar is partially responsible.
In early December, the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced it was targeting José Enrique Rincón and sons Juan Diego and José Enrique, claiming they were part of a plot to overthrow his government. The government subsequently took over Rincón’s company Grupo Lamar, Venezuela’s largest shrimp-farming company, as Rincón and his sons fled the nation – joining 7.7 million other Venezuelans that have fled the country since Maduro came to power in 2013.
Since the announcement by Venezuela Interior and Justice Minister Diosdado Cabello, Grupo Lamar has been taken over by an administrative board, and the state’s fisheries and aquaculture ministry INSOPESCA canceled export permits and sanitary certifications for containers on 28 November, urging countries to not permit delivery until new permits can be issued.
Grupo Lamar produced around 45,000 metric tons (MT) of vannamei shrimp in 2022, Grupo Lamar Board Chairman Luis Comella Barboza told SeafoodSource in 2023, and was aiming to increase that to somewhere between 50,000 MT and 60,000 MT in 2023. The company accounts for 80 percent of Venezuela’s total shrimp exports.
In recent years, according to Shrimp Insights, Venezuela has ...
