Medidas de Gestao das Pescarias Marinhas e Aquicultura 2019 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | Page 70

PART 1 WORLD REVIEW
an increasingly important driver of global
economic output, with the share of merchandise
trade in world gross domestic product (GDP)
exceeding 42 percent in 2016, almost 2.5 times
the equivalent fig ure in 1960. Another significant
aspect of globalization has been an increase in
international social and cultural integration,
accelerated by the rise of information technolog y,
greatly increasing the speed and ease with which
consumer tastes, trends and concerns are spread
from one countr y to another.
GDP, but since the financial crisis these two
growth rates have been relatively similar because
of a poor investment climate, weak global
markets for heavily traded commodities and a
slowdown in many major economies. However,
global trade and GDP strengthened in 2017,
benefiting from a cyclical upturn in global capital
spending ( World Bank, 2018). Trade in fish and
fish products has largely followed the prevailing
trend, with a decline in 2009 after the 2008
economic crisis, a rebound in 2010 –2011 and
moderate growth in 2012–2014. In 2015, trade in
fish and fish products decreased by 10 percent
compared to 2014. Reasons for this contraction
include the weakening of many key emerging
markets, lower prices for a number of important
species and especially the significant
strengthening of the United States dollar versus
an array of major currencies in 2015, making the
value of trade conducted in those currencies seem
relatively low. In 2016, trade increased by
7 percent compared to the year before, and in
2017, the uptick in economic growth strengthened
demand and lifted prices, increasing the value of
global trade in fish exports by about 7 percent to
peak at an estimated USD 152 billion.
It is estimated that some 78 percent of fish and
fish products are exposed to international trade
competition (Tveterås et al., 2012), and supply and
demand dynamics for many species are
increasingly global in nature. Producers are
consolidating and increasingly supply and operate
in multiple countries. Processing activity is
concentrated in countries with lower labour costs;
some countries even export fish for processing and
later import it back for final sale and consumption.
International marketing campaigns, a range of
new product types and lower prices, supported by
economies of scale and lower wages in processor
countries, all contribute to generating strong
competition for domestically produced fish,
particularly among urban consumers seeking new
tastes and greater convenience. Large retail and
food service chains, many operating in multiple
countries, are imposing new requirements on their
suppliers for consistency in quality, food safety,
traceability and sustainability.
Table 16 shows the top exporters and importers. 7
The key trends are illustrated below, with
highlights of 2017 data when available. China is
the main fish producer and since 2002 has also
been the largest exporter of fish and fish
products, although they represent only 1 percent
of its total merchandise trade. After exceptionally
rapid gains through the 1990s and 2000s, the
average annual increase in the value of Chinese
exports of fish and fish products dropped from 14
percent in 2000 –2008 to 9.1 percent in 2009–2017.
In 2017, Chinese exports of fish and fish products
reached USD 20.5 billion, with an increase of
2 percent relative to 2016 and of 4 percent relative
to 2015. Since 2011 China has also been the
world’s third largest importer of fish and fish
products, partly because large quantities of fish
are imported for processing and then
re-exported, but also because rising incomes and
As demand for fish and fish products is sensitive
to income levels of consumers, trends in
international fish trade depend to a large degree
on the global economic environment, although
other important factors inf luence domestic
consumption, such as exchange rate trends,
climatic events and large-scale disease outbreaks.
While differences among countries and regions
remain substantial, global GDP growth since the
2008 –2009 financial crisis has generally been
sluggish relative to the long-term trend. Trade
expansion has also slowed; the 1.3 percent
increase in global merchandise trade volume in
2016 was the lowest since 2008 ( W TO, 2017),
while a strong United States dollar and low
commodit y prices translated into a 3.3 percent
drop in value the same year. Historically, world
trade has grown at a significantly faster rate than
7  Usually, exports are recorded at their free-on-board (FOB) value
and imports at their cost, insurance and freight (CIF) value. Therefore,
at the world level, the value of imports should be higher than that of
exports. However, since 2011 this has not been the case. Work is under
way to understand the reasons for this anomalous trend.
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