jueves, marzo 28, 2024
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Aquaculture and Fishery companies need to increase its exports to generate more employment opportunities

Companies members of AGEXPORT’s Aquaculture and Fishery Sector are well known for their continuous investments on technology, innovation and high added value for their products. This unceasing development has made possible that nowadays the industry generates more than 13,000 direct jobs and more than 35,000 indirectly.

Opportunities in international markets for aquaculture companies are highly relevant, mainly in countries like China, Japan and Australia. These opportunities can be important to help our companies grow and integrate more small producers and fishermen of products like shrimp, tilapia fish and tuna fish and generate more economic and social development in rural areas. Nevertheless, it is important for this to happen that the upcoming government takes immediate actions once they take office on January 14th, 2020. These actions need to focus on increasing the current export volume of aquaculture products; said Mr. Amador Carballido, AGEXPORT’s CEO.

Shrimp, tuna, tilapia and goldfish exports registered sales of USD135 million on 2018, translated to almost 50 million pounds sold in markets like the United States, the European Union, Mexico, Japan and others.

The intensive usage of technology, constant innovation and the strong integration between producers and exporting firms have developed the aquaculture industry in Guatemala. Nevertheless, a high portion of the national production is destined to the domestic market. If we make possible that more of this production joins the exporting chain, the benefits for local communities and producers would grow exponentially, leading to a boost in economic conditions and employment in these communities. That is why we detail four clear actions on our proposal for the upcoming authorities titled “Returning to a Job Creation Pathway”. These four actions are: raising the industry’s productivity, offer products with higher added value, exploring and opening more international markets and improving the capabilities of the country’s authorities on food safety; said Mr. Carballido.

AGEXPORT’s Aquaculture and Fishery Sector is integrated by companies focused on: shrimp, tilapia and goldfish production, tuna fishing, marine products processing, balanced food mills, brokers and providers of raw materials for the industry.

One important success story we found at our sector is a small shrimp producer of El Cebollito, Chiquimulilla, Santa Rosa department. He moved from producing low-quality agriculture products to high-quality aquaculture. Nowadays with intensive usage of technology, he produces 50 tons of shrimp per cycle per hectare and provide employment opportunities for 20 Guatemalans; said Mrs. Maria Olga Menendez, AGEXPORT’s Aquaculture and Fishery Manager.

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