2024-03-28 01:02:21
The tuna sector seeks to improve export prices in 2024 and is pressing to reverse the ‘yellow card’. In addition, it clings to markets in Europe and the United States.
The Manta tuna sector, in Manabí, continues to seek to improve benefits and conditions in the markets of Europe and the United States. Furthermore, they are still waiting for a ‘political decision’ for the European Union to withdraw their ‘yellow card’.
The port city is key in the exports of canned tuna in the commercial balance, both provincial and national, since 70% of the industries in the sector are concentrated in Manta.
According to the tuna businessman, Raúl Paladines, the markets are the same. “There are few new ones, rather those that already exist grow or decrease.”
Paladines says that, for example, there was a “slump” in some markets in Europe, due to the impacts of the Ukraine-Russia war.
However, growth in South American markets, such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile, stands out. But there are markets in which they have not yet managed to improve conditions and which they are trying to enter with force. This is the United States, where “there was a drop in sales, due to skills that were not very typical.”
While in Canada they remain, because it is an interesting market, despite being “not very significant in terms of volumes,” explains the tuna businessman.
Paladines recognizes that the biggest complications in the sector arise because production costs have risen and “sales are being made almost at the same prices as two or three years ago.” He also explains that the economic situation the world is going through does not favor the sector.
“We can make 1,000 cans (tuna), but if there is no one to buy them…” Raúl Paladines, tuna businessman.
For that, the businessman reflects: “What do we need? “That the rules are more flexible, that the paperwork to which we are subject is more practical and that, at some point, the industry is truly seen for what it is, a job generator.”
The last four years
According to figures from the Central Bank of Ecuador (BCE), from January to December 2020, exports of tuna loins and canned tuna reached 267,970 tons. For 2021, in that same period, they stood at 276,856 tons. While in 2022 it was 267,495 tons. By 2023, exports will reach 245,290 tons. The above figures show a notable variation in the last four years.
Yellow card
But the instability in tuna exports is not the only thing that the country faces, since Ecuador has not yet managed to get the European Union to withdraw its ‘yellow card’. Which is viewed with concern by the tuna industry, because, according to Paladines, “there is little left, but it is the hardest part of the entire process.”
He adds that several sectors involved are putting pressure and that the sanction has not been reversed for “lack of decision of the State”. The warning was imposed in 2019, for not having the necessary control elements against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
The last thing known about the issue was that on December 6, 2023, the Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment and Fisheries of Ecuador, Sonsoles García, met with a European delegation.
The objective was to analyze the visit of the General Directorate in Charge of European Union Policies on Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, regarding the lifting of the yellow card.
Although the ‘yellow card’ does not prevent Ecuadorian exports of these products to the European bloc of 27 countries, its imposition was a wake-up call for Ecuador to make the necessary reforms and reach the required standard before an eventual ban.
By: PRIMICIAS