Venezuela’s Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Juan Carlos Loyo has announced the South American nation has secured a trading protocol with China that will allow it to send wild-caught and farmed species to the top seafood import market in the world starting in 2025.
This follows protocol agreements that China recently signed with several African markets along the same lines.
“Venezuela will be one of only 15 countries with the permission to export to China,” Loyo said during a recent interview. “We will ship shrimp but also jellyfish and croaker, among other species.”
In total, over 50 private and publicly owned Venezuelan companies are permitted to ship 21 different species to China.
Loyo secured the protocol during a recent trip to Shanghai and specifically nailed down three written accords and nearly 75 verbal agreements with Chinese companies for purchases of Venezuelan seafood.
“We also contacted 152 Chinese companies for future negotiations,” Loyo said, further claiming he also spoke with 10 investors who are interested in the potential of Venezuelan aquaculture and fisheries.
If those investments were to come to fruition, Venezuela would become the latest country with a seafood industry that has caught the attention of Chinese investors.
“They want to come and invest here because they see it as the country of the future,” Loyo said.
Traveling with Loyo to Shanghai, Fernando Villamizar, the president of Venezuelan shrimp producer trade body ASOPROCO, said Venezuela aims to increase its shrimp output from under 100,000 metric tons (MT) this year to 600,000 MT in 2030, with 60 percent of the projected output going to China.
The E.U. and U.S. have long been the primary buyers of Venezuelan seafood output.
However, it is unclear, at least in the short term, how recent shakeups at the nation’s top shrimp producer Grupo Lamar will affect the nation’s shrimp output.
The Venezuelan government recently claimed that now-former Grupo Lamar Owner José Enrique Rincón was involved in a plot to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro. He and his sons fled the country in response to the accusations.
Operational control of Grupo Lamar has since been seized by the national government – a move that has benefited other nation’s shrimp industries, such as India’s, and called into question whether the company’s previously stated goals to expand production are now realistic.
