Despite a difficult year, Chile posted record seafood exports in 2008, thanks, in part, to premature harvesting of farmed salmon due to the infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus.
According to the Instituto de Fomento Pequero (IFOP), Chile's exports of farmed salmon and trout rose last year to about USD 2.5 billion (EUR 1.95 billion), up 6.4 percent from 2007. The country exported 48,600 metric tons of salmon and trout in December, up 2.5 percent from the same month the previous year.
However, the challenging economic climate and the still-to-be-contained ISA outbreak prompted government intervention, in the form of a USD 120 million loan to struggling salmon companies.
Salmon companies were forced to cut about 7,500 jobs last year.
And this year doesn't look much better. The Food and Agriculture Organization's Globefish projects Chile's 2009 salmon production to drop 40 to 50 percent.
