Ukraine reporting seafood import statistics for 2008-2009

From October 2008 to September 2009 the seafood importation to the Ukraine decreased by 23% as compared to the same period of last year, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to Derzhzovnishinform.

The new season also looks not optimistic. Experts forecast that the Ukraine will import no more than 320,000-330,000 tonnes of finfish and other aquatic products.

The most important factor which has affected the seafood market is a decreased of the exchange rate of hryvnia to the USD as more than 80% of the fish supply on the Ukrainian market is contributed by imported products.

Rise in seafood prices and decrease of the consumer capacity have resulted into a shift in demand from expensive delicatessen fish products towards cheaper pelagic species.

More specifically, from November 2008 to July 2009 the total import volume of fish delicatessen has decreased 1.5-fold as compared to the same period of 2007/2008. The largest decrease was observed in trout imports which fell more than 3 times. Nearly 3-fold decrease was also shown by Pacific salmon, while import of ocean perch declined 1.4-fold. Besides, the traders imported hake and saithe correspondingly 1.7 times and 1.4 times less than last year. At the same time import of notothenia and capelin jumped by 20% and 90% correspondingly. Shellfish products no longer were in strong demand with the import volume of the product group declining two times.

Considerable drops were also observed for seafood products purchased as raw material for further processing. In particular, import of fish for smoking dropped by 30% and that of fish for salting decreased by 20%. As for fish for smoking, the processors partly switched from mackerel and herring to capelin and blue whiting. In particular, mackerel import for further smoking sank more than 3 times, and herring import got halved. At the same time, import of capelin for smoking grew by 90%, and that of blue whiting jumped by 50%.