Shrimp export to the United States has almost halved over the past several years although Bangladesh's overall exports marked all-time high last year mainly for steady flow to the European market, the industry sources said.
Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) officials confirmed the state of external trade to the FE Tuesday. They listed several factors which contributed to the fall of trade on the US market and the rise on the EU market that propped up the country's shrimp export.
Shrimp exports fetched US$ 638 million to the coffer in the fiscal 2013-14 as against $543 million in the previous fiscal.
The breakthrough last year came, the sources said, against the backdrop of a highly depressed market for Bangladesh in the past several years.
The sources said major exporters like China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and India from Asia had outpaced Bangladesh in price competition in the early 2010s as they were shipping low-cost hybrid shrimps.
But, suddenly, many of them faced with crop failure due to attack on 'venamy' and such other hybrid shrimps as well as tsunami that over-flooded the fields. And these adversities led to a supply shortfall on the global market.
Bangladesh stepped forward to fill the vacuum and fed the European market, often at 20 to 30 percent higher prices.
A functionary of Bangladesh Frozen Food Exporters Association (BFFEA) explained the market situation to the FE Tuesday and said the problem of Bangladesh shrimp industry is now its lower per-hectare yield. The output stands around 300 kilograms to 350 kgs per hectare under traditional method compared to Thailand's 6,000 to 7,000-kilo per-hectare productivity for hybrid culture.
He said the fact remains that the country is not having enough produce to supply to the US market which now concentrates on buying hybrid and low- cost produce from traditional sources like Vietnam, Thailand and China.
It is also making up the market shortfall from supplies from neighbouring Ecuador, which are both low-cost and closer to supply chain. On the other hand, since European buyers are paying higher prices, Bangladesh is attaching priority to this market.
Consequently, export to the USA has dwindled over the past several years, from $110 million in 2008-09 to only 55 million last year.
Compared to it, export to Belgium almost doubled to $107 million last year, followed by the UK wherefrom Bangladesh received $105 million in 2013-14.
Meanwhile, export earnings from the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and France soared to $ 85 million, $67 million, $44 million and 19 million respectively. Export to Japan and Saudi Arabia also amounted to $19 million and $10 million.
The US market is below that of Germany now, the BFFEA official said.
In his view the country's shrimp industry is now having a better global market than anytime before even though it is failing on the US market.
"The major problem here is lower per-hectare productivity, which is forcing 80 per cent of the country's 32 shrimp-processing plants to keep sitting idle," he said.
They have a combined processing capacity of 3.5 lakh tonnes but producing only 60,000 tonnes annually for export.
The BFFEA official said experts and industry owners are by and large opposed to switching over to farming venamy and such other high-yielding species for they are highly vulnerable to disease and not environmentally suitable. Instead, they have taken up a pilot project in Cox's Bazaar to gradually switch to semi-intensive and improved extensive local culture which may have per-hectare productivity at 4,500 kgs and 1,500 kgs respectively.
"The industry is closely working with the government to secure its cooperation to make the new initiative a success," he said.
