Between January and March 2013, Spain exported 30,236 tonnes of canned seafood, a figure that accounts for a decrease of 11.45 per cent over the same period last year (34,147 tonnes).
However, the turnover of those shipments abroad recorded only a slight decline of 0.69 per cent, according to the National Association of Manufacturers of Canned Seafood (Anfaco-Cecopesca) in its corporate published material.
In the first quarter of the year, exports of canned seafood totalled almost EUR 151 million while in the same period in 2012 it exceeded EUR 152 million.
On observing the shipments abroad per product, almost all of them have negative values except canned mackerel, cuttlefish, squid and octopus.
According to the report issued by Anfaco, sales of tuna abroad fell 15.61 per cent -- the species that concentrates most of the Spanish production -- and also those of mussels (58.33 per cent), clams and cockles (33 per cent), scallops (91 per cent) and sardines (2.52 per cent).
Instead, increases in volume and value of exports of canned tuna loins are surprising in the first three months of the year: 1,227 tonnes of tuna loins (39.12 per cent more than in the period between January and March, 2012) were exported for EUR 7 million, representing an increase of 52.54 per cent year-on-year.
Anfaco report also detailed that the fall in Spanish sales of canned, semi-canned and processed seafood to the EU market in the first quarter of the year was 12.15 per cent.
Anyway, the turnover decreased slightly by 0.24 per cent in the European Union and 0.28 per cent in the whole continent, the newspaper La Opinion reported.
With regard to imports of canned tuna, between January and March, 2013 increased by 14 per cent in volume when reaching 19,422 tonnes, and 13.11 per cent in value at EUR 76 million.