The imposition of an indefinite ban on importing live shrimp sees exporters cash in on Philippines “uniquely” disease-free status.
The imposition of a ban on importing live shrimpis proving successful as exports ramp up and prices rise for the Philippines.
“We are now exporting at least PHP 325 million (€5.6 million/$7.6 million) worth of vannamei monthly for the past three months,” Asis Perez,aquactic resources director at the country's Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources said in an interview with Philippine Daily Inquirer. “We expect shipments to be bigger in the coming months.”
Last April, BFAR suspended indefinitely the processing of applications for the importation of all live shrimps and crustaceans, in an effort move to prevent early mortality syndrome (EMS) and other shrimp diseases from entering and spreading in the Philippines.
The bureau put up a watch list on inbound shipmentsfrom “heavily affected” areas such as Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, Brunei and Cambodia.
“The move proves to be correct since the Philippines remains EMS-free unlike our neighbors, and we are now reaping positive results,” Perez said.
In August, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said his department was gearing up for a shrimp production blitz to enable the country to regain a firmer foothold in the export market within six months. Alcala said in an interview he had assigned the BFAR to draw up a roadmap on shrimp exportation.
“We need a crash program to increase production within the next six months up to a level that we could send shipments abroad,” Alcala said back then. The agriculture chief said the Philippines had enough breeding stock to drive export-oriented production.
He said he had met with industry stakeholders and that it was agreed that one of the priorities was supply integration. “This might be it, we may be able to rebound (with our shrimp industry),” Alcala said.
The Philippines enjoyed a boom in the shrimp export market in the 1990s, which unfortunately bombed out when shrimp diseases wiped out farms.