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BACOLOD CITY: The shrimp industry urges government to provide
infrastructure support to enable them to increase its export
potential and be more competitive in the global market.
The Philippines is lagging behind its Southeast
Asian counterparts in terms of marketability due to the absence of
processing plants, Roberto Gatuslao, president of the Negros Prawn
Producers Cooperative (NPPC) said yesterday.
Gatuslao said market requirements have evolved
and the industry needs to improve its value-adding capability to
keep up with these demands.
He explained that lifestyle change has also much
to do with these, with consumers now demanding for express food and
would prefer shrimps and prawns in microwable packaging for example.
“We still export our produce fresh and in
original state,” Gatuslao said, adding, “Thailand, China and
Vietnam have invested much on value-adding facilities thus they
continue to corner the export market.”
We are now a far cry from where we used to be
when we ranked second to Thailand, he added.
Currently, the Philippines produce 24,000 metric
tons of prawns and 30,000 metric tons of white shrimps annually, of
which 60 percent goes to domestic market and the remaining for
export.
Aside from market access concerns, Gatuslao also
said that the industry has been much affected by the increasing
prices of fuel and feeds that upped production cost by 20 percent.
Gatuslao is hoping that these concerns will be
addressed during the 6th Shrimp Congress this May 28 to 30 at the
Bacolod Pavilion Resort which NPPC is organizing along with the
Philippine Shrimp Association.
“We hope to address concerns on production
innovation and market access,” he said, adding that they hoped to
gain insights from producers and industry stakeholders from the
United States, Spain, Ecuador and India.
Prawn producer Philip Cruz said the industry
remains viable but needs to substantially break into the export
market.
“We have a lot of potential considering that
we are the only shrimp producers that do not use antibiotics to
combat diseases,” Cruz added.
Luzon and Mindanao are still the highest
producing areas in the country while Negros accounts for 10 percent
of the country’s produce.
-- Ma. Ester L. Espina
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