The latest report of Rabobank predicts that China's shrimp product market will face greater challenges in the second half of the year, and the trend of continuous growth in imports may not continue. In addition, Asian shrimp farming countries will further contract production, and India's production decline will expand.

The report believes that with weak global demand and the intensification of El Nino, the global aquaculture industry in the second half of 2023 will face the most severe challenge since the 2020 epidemic. Inflation problems in Europe and the US continue to weigh on demand; Fish meal and fish oil prices continue to be high, posing an acute challenge to China's aquaculture industry; Demand in China has not recovered as quickly as expected, leading to low prices and rising inventories of shrimp products; The trend of import growth is not expected to continue in the second half of the year.

In the first half of this year, China imported more than 500,000 tons of frozen warm water shrimp, up 49 percent year-on-year. imports amounted to about $2.84 billion, up 29% year on year.

Gorjan Nikolik, chief economist at Rabobank, believes China's record import demand in the second half of the year will not be repeated, as weak demand expectations have created a glut of frozen stocks. Chinese consumption of shrimp products has not kept pace with import growth and inventory expansion, which will dampen import demand in the second half of the year.

On the production side, Asian countries are suffering from high costs and low prices, and production will decline, especially India's production will be significantly reduced which may reach up to 20%. Assuming that El Nino does not seriously affect the South American livestock sector, Ecuador's full-year production growth will expand to 16-18%, slower in the second half than in the first half (20%), but still enough to create a global oversupply and put pressure on Asian countries.

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