After seeing a slump earlier this year, shrimp exports from Bangladesh are slowly picking up again as the production period of white-leg shrimp has ended, creating an opportune moment for exporters to ship freshwater prawns amid rising global demand.

SOHEL PARVEZ

Shrimp exports are gradually recovering from a downturn earlier this year mainly due to increased demand and prices for freshwater prawn and partly for brackish water shrimp locally known as black tiger, two exporters said.

Export earnings from shrimp, the main item of the half-a-billion dollar export earning frozen and live fish sector, plunged as much as 32 per cent in the July-November period of the current fiscal year 2022-23.

The situation has been improving since then.

Frozen food processors recorded a 24 per cent slump in shrimp shipments for the US and European markets, showed data from the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB).

“We see the recovery as demand and prices of prawn has increased,” said Kazi Belayet Hossain, president of the Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA).

Bangladesh grows black tiger shrimp and prawns for export mainly in the southwest coastal division of Khulna and the rest in the southeast division of Chattogram.

And the export proceeds from shipments of shrimp hit a six-year high in fiscal year 2021-22 and overall receipts stood at $532 million by the end of the fiscal, according to EPB.

Earnings from the sector began to fall since August of this financial year, plummeting by as much as 32 per cent due to declining demand for locally grown black tiger shrimp.

Oversupply white-leg shrimp, also called vannamei, caused its prices to fall and led to a downturn in prices and demand for locally grown shrimp, said S Humayun Kabir, director of BFFEA.

He said vannamei accounts for 77 per cent of the global demand for shrimp while Bangladesh’s black tiger shrimp and prawns are comparatively larger in size and have higher prices.

However, after November, the demand for locally grown shrimp began to increase as the supply of vannamei reduced because of end of the production season.

“This created an opportunity for us to sell at higher prices from stocks that were built up earlier,” Kabir added.

He then said Bangladesh is likely to enjoy the advantage over white-leg shrimp as harvesting of brackish water shrimp has already started here. On the other hand, harvests of vannamei start late.

“So, it is likely that we may get higher prices and higher demand for our shrimp in the export market,” added Kabir, also managing director of Amam Seafood Industries Ltd.

BFFEA President Hossain, citing the formulation of a guideline for commercial cultivation of vannamei, said they would start cultivation of the non-native shrimp from the next fiscal year.

The government framed the guideline for commercial cultivation of vannamei species after experimental farming in three farms in the southern coastal region showed severalfold higher yields compared to that of locally farmed black tiger shrimp.