According to the news from SeafoodNews on March 30, Gorjan Nikolik, an international senior industry analyst at Rabobank, said that the trend of seafood trade has changed dramatically in recent years.

Gorjan Nikolik told the North Atlantic Seafood Forum that China has transitioned from being the world's largest seafood exporter to a net importer, which has kept Norway at the top of exporter rankings for more than a decade, but it may not hold on long, as Ecuador is steadily overtaking Norway through the continued growth of its shrimp industry.

Gorjan Nikolik said the South American country has the potential to become the world's largest seafood exporter within the next seven years.

China was the world's largest seafood exporter in 2012, followed by Norway, Thailand, and Chile. In 2017, China is still in the lead, followed by Norway, India, Chile, and Ecuador, but in 2022 , with the growth rate of China's seafood exports at 1.8% and imports at 10%, China has become a net importer. In the same decade, Ecuador moved from being the ninth net exporter to the second.

The world has changed in just a few years. Norway has become the number one supplier of seafood, but Ecuador, which is based on shrimp production, may have the opportunity to become the number one supplier of seafood by 2030.

Gorjan Nikolik pointed out that Norway's trade is mainly focused on farmed salmon, while Ecuador's trade is mainly based on the production of shrimp. There are great similarities between the two countries. Ecuador's export trade started with the sale of shrimp to the US and EU markets. Yes, but recently it has become more dependent on China, where it now exports about 60% of its shrimp.

Over the past two years, Ecuador's total shrimp exports have doubled, from US$3 billion to more than US$6 billion.

Shrimp and salmon have been the two dominant players in the global seafood trade, with sales topping $25 billion despite the challenges posed to exporting countries during the pandemic.

Gorjan Nikolik believes that the consumption status of seafood in China is changing. With the aging population, the Chinese market will become more and more dependent on imported seafood.