The shrimp price fall in global markets put a squeeze on earnings from the country's frozen food exports, exporters concerned said Friday.
Earnings in the sector, the country's second biggest foreign currency earner after garments, fell short of the target by 10.99 per cent in the last 2007-08 fiscal year, though the exports grew by 3.64 per cent compared to the previous fiscal.
Despite the shrimp price fall, the country earned $534.07 million in the last fiscal from export of frozen foods, which contribute more than 95 per cent to the total export earnings.
Maksudur Rahman, immediate past president of Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters' Association (BFFEA), told the FE that the sector's earnings could exceed the target of $600 million last fiscal unless the price fall was there.
'We failed to get better prices in US and European markets as the demand for shrimp from buyers of those countries was lower due to economic pressure, that led to the price fall,' he said.
Quazi Belayet Hossain, president of BFFEA, said the prices of shrimp per pound in the USA and European markets dropped by at least one dollar.
'We found prices of shrimp per pound in the USA and European markets at around $4.60 this year against $5.60 a year ago.'
Apart from this, a sector insider said the European consumers' reluctance to buy more Bangladeshi shrimp also contributed to the less growth in earnings.
EU consumers showed their reluctance to order for more Bangladeshi frozen foods in the March-May period of this year after the reported presence of nitrophuran bacteria in Bangladeshi shrimp.
Rahman said: 'Our shrimp exports to European countries, the USA and Japan are expected to get a boost in February-May, the peak of the season, as we have managed to improve the quality in line with the prescribed guidelines of leading buyers.'
Bangladesh supplies more than two per cent of the global demand for black tiger and prawn, the two species of shrimp. Bangladesh produces yearly around 170,000 tonnes of black tiger and 30,000 tonnes of prawn in the country's 94 farms located mostly in the south western coastal areas involving around 20,000 people directly.
'The shrimp production per hectare of land in the country is very poor compared to the production in other countries in the region. We get around 250 kilogrammes of shrimp per hectare of land while Thailand and China get 2,000 kg from the same area in a season,' a sector insider said.
For raising production further and boosting exports, he said Bangladeshi shrimp farmers should gather knowledge from the experiences in India, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and China as these countries are getting better output by using better technologies.
