It could be argued that aquaculture has worked a miracle and multiplied fish. This happened first with salmon farming and is now happening with shrimp, which are also bred in hatcheries on a large scale.
The other side of the coin is a drop in the price that sup to double and sometimes triple the current US$ 6,000 per ton.
This is what happens in the fishing industry, where the main players say that they row a lot to be able to go out to sea and fish. It is an activity in which some companies are both judge and jury in several links of a chain that starts at the bottom of the sea.
However, in almost all governments, fisheries policy is a difficult subject to deal with. One obstacle is the widespread ignorance about the activityand another that fish are public property, tempting condition for the political box.
In recent governments, the area was left to friends. Currently, the undersecretary is Juan Antonio López Casorla, who has been a delegate of the Tierra del Fuego Federal Fisheries Council for years.
The most striking thing is that even for Federico Sturzenegger, the king of deregulation, it is an indecipherable business. Sturzenegger put the spotlight on exploitation rights.
The chambers that represent this industry say that only three countries in the world charge fishing royalties and that none of them have the same tax burden as Argentina. And in Argentina, an exploitation fee is paid. similar to that charged in Canada, Norway and the Netherlands“Moreover, here it is four times higher than that in force in the United States,” they say in the Interchamber.
When talking to these entrepreneurs They take the blame for a low profile that allowed growing prejudice. They point out that the situation, due to local costs, wages in dollars and falling international prices, is rapidly worsening and they fear that they will be held hostage by this deterioration.
The tax burden of the fishing industry It accounts for around 35% of what is exported and in the fresh fleet in some species such as hake hubbsi it can reach 40%.
The country specialises in hake, which accounts for 38% of exports, shrimp (25%) and Illex squid (20%). In the case of shrimp, it competes worldwide with Ecuador, India and Thailand.
Se They count 500 companies, both local and foreignwhich employs 46,000 people. They operate 800 licensed vessels. There are, of course, some major players: the Platinum investment fund from the USA or Newsan, led by Ruben Chernajovsky.
Every year they are captured 780,000 tons of fish and seafood which are processed both on board ships and in one of the 377 manufacturing establishments in coastal maritime cities.
During 2023, landings were concentrated in the ports of Mar del Plata (49%), where a significant fresh fish fleet operates, Puerto Madryn (16%), Rawson (11%), Puerto Deseado (8%) and Ushuaia (4%), where the freezer fleet operates almost exclusively.
Annual exports are around US$ 1.8 billion and are carried out by around 200 companies that sell to more than 100 countries. China, Spain and the United States are the main destinations with 46%, followed by Italy with 7% and Thailand with 5%.
Argentina is the world’s leading exporter of black hake and ranks 21st as an exporter and 13th in relation to the volume of its catches.
“We are highly competitive, we ship 90% of the production to earn a place compared to countries with their subsidized activity, that do not pay import duties on their products and have never had export duties or double exchange rates. Only in the last 20 years have we contributed to the treasury US$ 2.3 billion in withholdings which are still in force and vary between 5 and 8%,” they lament in the chambers.
And they admit another challenge: increase domestic consumption. Despite its long coastline, Argentines hardly eat fish, just 5 to 6 kilos per inhabitant per year compared to the world average of 19 kilos per capita. And now it is no longer a question of price. A kilo of fish is worth 19 kilos. Salmon is available at almost the same price as the loin.