ROME: Fish imports to the EU have increased by an average €1 billion every year since 2009, reflecting growing European consumption. The 2015 increases were spread across all the main EU suppliers – Norway, China, Iceland, Morocco and the US – according to EUMOFA, the market intelligence service of the European Union on fishery and aquaculture products.
The EU’s €141 million, or three per cent increase in exports for 2015 was supported in part by a 16 per cent increase in the average price of the products exported. Despite the steady year-on-year export increase, the EU continues to import more than it exports and, in 2015, this trade deficit reached €17.8 billion, a seven per cent increase from 2014 but a 30 per cent increase from 2005. The Russian trade embargo on imports from the EU, as well as the US, Canada, Norway, Iceland and Australia, has impacted global trade.
The upside has seen it contribute to increasing trade among countries included in the embargo, such as the EU’s 19 per cent increase in imports from Iceland and nine per cent increase in imports from Norway. EU exporters are increasingly selling close to home, with trade among EU member states growing steadily. In 2015, more than six million tonnes of fishery products were traded within the EU – 35 per cent fresh, 28 per cent frozen – which represented a seven per cent increase in value and four per cent increase in volume from 2014.
Eight reporting member states – Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal and the UK – reported first-sales value increases, while Belgium and Sweden saw both volume and value decreases in January and February compared with 2015. Latvia had a nine per cent increase in volume landed but with a five per cent decrease in first-sales value. At the same time, the UK had increases in value and volume of 11 per cent and eight per cent, respectively. Also in February, the value of Norway lobster increased 53 per cent in France and 47 per cent in Denmark, while herring value decreased 28 per cent in Denmark, six per cent in Sweden and three per cent in Latvia.
