Antidumping and countervailing duties, as well as relatively stagnant growth in production, will negatively impact the global shrimp market this year, experts said at the 2024 Global Seafood Marketing Conference (GSMC), which took place from 23 to 25 January in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
Since the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) said it would maintain antidumping duties on shrimp from India, China, Thailand, and Vietnam in June 2023, seafood import-export businesses are facing significant uncertainty and disruption to their operations, Omarsa CEO Sandro Coglitore said during GSMC’s shrimp panel.
Ecuadorian-origin shrimp will be diverted from the U.S. market from April to May of this year until preliminary duties are released, according to Coglitore.
“This will be the biggest threat in the U.S. market in 2024,” Coglitore said. “No one knows how it is going to go; it’s impossible to see what is coming out there.”
At the same time, global vannamei shrimp production is slated to experience little to no growth in 2024, a year after Ecuadorian and Chinese producers enjoyed significant production upticks.
Global vannamei production grew 4.5 percent in 2023, reaching 5.15 million metric tons (MT), but will fall slightly to 5.1 million MT in 2024.
Producers in Ecuador have been “very resilient,” Coglitore said, after modifying their production techniques and boosting output 12 percent to 1.45 million MT in 2023. In 2024, Ecuador’s vannamei production, similar to global trends, is expected to remain flat at 1.45 million MT.
Those modified production techniques entailed Ecuadorian shrimp farmers reducing production in anticipation of El Niño weather patterns, Coglitore explained, but the adverse weather is likely to become less of an issue in 2024, making the predicted stagnant growth more concerning.
Meanwhile, China produced 20 percent more vannamei year over year in 2023, reaching 1.15 million MT. The country's output is expected to fall slightly to 1.1 million MT this year.
Charoen Pokphand Foods CEO Robins MacIntosh said China’s growth in 2023 was due the rapid production system its farmers typically employ, comprising small indoor “raceways” that are 200 square meters of water set up in greenhouse-type structures.
“They can run two crops a year and build hundreds of thousands of them,” he said. “They have lots of ponds they can convert – all it takes is stable prices.”
However, during a visit MacIntosh made to China in December 2023, he said he heard from many farmers of their unhappiness overcthe prices they were receiving.
India’s production, meanwhile, fell 1 percent in 2023 to 800,000 MT and is expected to decline further this year to 780,000 MT, according to FAO data cited at the panel. India still has capacity is still in place to revert to higher volumes if price incentives improve, according to MacIntosh.
Brazil is one of the only countries likely to continue its positive growth trajectory, according to the panel. The country’s shrimp production soared 20 percent to 135,000 MT last year and is projected to reach 150,000 MT in 2024.
Global black tiger shrimp production is also on a positive trend, with production spiking 20 percent in 2023 to reach 540,000 MT. It is projected to grow to 580,000 MT in 2024.
Photo courtesy of Christine Blank/SeafoodSource
