Shrimp producers in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte region resume exports after months of just supplying the domestic market.
Shrimp producers from Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte region began exporting again to overseas markets, following a year of supplying only to the domestic market.
The first containers with shrimp set sail for Europe, the country’s main market, last week.
The Rio Grande do Norte area is among the largest shrimp producers in the country and led exports from Brazil between 2003 and 2004.
The expectation, according to the Brazilian Association of Shrimp Breeders (ABCC) is the region will export half of its production within the next 12 months.
The estimated production from the area for this year is 14,000 metric tons, the ABBC said.
Historically, the state exported 95 percent of all the shrimp produced, but in 2012 all local production was sold on the domestic market due to the appreciation of the real against the US dollar in recent years.
The president of ABCC, Itamar Rocha, said the current conditions are more favorable to exports: the dollar rose again and the world shrimp supply fell.
Meanwhile, the decline in shrimp production in China, Thailand and Vietnam -- impaired by the early mortality syndrome (EMS) disease -- has opened the way to producers from Rio Grande, who expect to expand the volume of exports by 50 percent in the next 12 months.
Sergio Lima, CEO of Potipora Aquicultura (a company belonging to Queiroz Galvao Group) expects a leap in production.
"In 2012, we produced 3,000 tons. This year, we must produce about 6,500 tons. The idea is to further increase the volume in the next 12 months, exceeding 7,000 tons," Lima said.
"We have already received orders from China and Russia. Before we exported only to Europe," he added.
This year, the company expects to export about 90 ton of shrimp, and a good part of the shipment would go to France.
"We are taking this opportunity. We had not planned that," the entrepreneur continued explaining.