SANTIAGO: Trucks paralyzed and grounded shipments: salmon and hake are stranded in Chile as the customs strike that started at midnight on May 20 looks set to enter its fifth day this Monday.
Chilean authorities have estimatedthat the strike is costing the country $2 million in lost air-freight shipments a day, with fish, mainly salmon and hake, the most affected.
The national fisheries union Sonapesca has estimated that the seafood sector is losing $5m a day due to paralyzed trucks alone.
“No fish is flying to the US,” one Chilean exporter told media. “About 50 or more trucks made a round trip to the airport and it’s a mess all over.”
Sonapesca said some 500 metric tons of salmon were stranded at the Santiago Arturo Merino Benitez airport, and another 500t were stuck in the south, by the end of Friday.
Another 25 trucks were paralyzed and unable to do their daily shipments, it said. This alone amounts to losses of $5m a day, assuming each truck carries salmon cargo of around $200,000, said Sonapesca, cited in local media reports.
Rodrigo Hanaias, manager of the Chilean Airlines Association (Achila), was quoted as saying that an estimated 800t of perishable cargo had not been shipped as a result of the strike.
The aforementioned Chilean exporter speculated the situation will benefit Chile’s competing salmon producers, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Canada.
They “must be happy getting more orders than normal”, said this source.
Speaking to the Norwegian salmon website iLaks on Friday, Norwegian exporters said they had not noticed the effect of the strike yet.
