By Louis Harkell Sep. 9, 2019 23:43 BST
Photo Credit: Oprea George / Shutterstock
Ecuador's two largest shrimp exporters -- Industrial Pesquera Santa Priscila and Omarsa -- which combined exported close to $1 billion worth of shrimp in 2018, have possibly been "temporarily suspended" from exporting to China.
According to a notice published on a Chinese Wechat account, purportedly of an announcement by China's General Administration of Customs, the suspension follows detection of shrimp disease in the companies' shrimp products.
Undercurrent News was unable to verify the authenticity of the notice at the time of publication, nor whether the suspensions are company-wide or specific to certain factories. China's General Administration of Customs' website could not be accessed using a foreign internet IP address nor using a VPN to access it from inside China.
Ecuador's Chamber of Commerce did not respond to immediate requests for comment.
A source at Omarsa told Undercurrent he'd heard "rumors" of a suspension on Monday (Sept. 9) morning when he arrived at work, but appeared in the dark about specifics.
He said the firm has received no letter of confirmation from Chinese authorities about a ban or suspension, and the news had come out of the blue.
According to the notice which appears genuine, export approval for Omarsa and Santa Priscila under approval no. 477 and no. 4251 respectively -- published on Chinese custom's List of Fishery Products Establishments Registered to P.R China -- was rescinded on Sept. 6. In the registry, Omarsa provides its headquarters as the "establishment address", while Santa Priscila provides the address of a factory in Juan Tanca Marengo, Guayaquil.
The Ecuadorean government is believed to be involved in trying to clarify details, the source at Omarsa said.
In Santa Priscila's case, Chinese authorities detected white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) in shrimp, while in Omarsa's case, authorities detected yellowhead disease (YHD), according to the notice.
Omarsa shipments affected by the ban exported after Aug. 5 will be prevented from entering China, while Santa Priscila shipments affected by its ban exported after Aug. 23 will suffer the same fate.
Saudi Arabia ban
Both companies export hundreds of containers of shrimp every month and count China as their largest market.
A suspension would also follow a recent Chinese ban on imports of shrimp from Saudi Arabia’s National Aquaculture Group. Also described as a "temporary suspension", it also followed detection of WSSV in shrimp, according to a Chinese industry publication.
The suspension was followed by 40 shrimp exporters from Iran being granted market access.
Neither YHD nor WSSV are specific to Ecuador nor Saudi Arabia. The former is considerably rarer, and is believed to be carried by insects. Most unverified reports are from Southeast Asia with verified reports in Thailand. WSSV, on the other hand, is present in most shrimp-producing countries, including China.
Ecuador has become increasingly dependent on the Chinese market amid the Latin American country's booming shrimp exports, a fact remarked on during the 2019 World Seafood Expo held recently in Shanghai.
"It's great Ecuador has such a huge customer like China," an Ecuadorean packer told Undercurrent, "but it means we've become dependent on China to buy every single harvest, which is every two weeks. If for some reason China stops buying, prices will collapse."
In 2018, Omarsa exported 64,410 metric tons of shrimp products, worth $383m, according to trade data from Estadistica (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica).
Last year, Santa Priscila exported 76,868t of shrimp products, worth $492m.
In July, Ecuador shipped 35,581t of shrimp to China, worth $202m, according to Ecuador's Camara Nacional de Acuacultura, or national chamber of aquaculture, or 63% of total shrimp exports.
Contact the author louis.harkell@undercurrentnews.com
