Shrimp surpasses bananas in foreign sales in five of the first eight months

In February, March, April, June and August of 2014, the shrimp has displaced the banana sales abroad and has disputed the first place as the first non-oil export product of the country, as indicated by data from the Central Bank of Ecuador (BCE for its Spanish acronym) .

José Antonio Camposano, President of the National Chamber of Aquaculture, said that the growth in shrimp exports is due in big part to the improvement of the production process.

“The importance of these last 18 months is that the growth rate is driven by medium and small farms that reinvested these earnings in technology,” said the leader.

He added that the fall of the Asian market for the Mortality Syndrome has benefited shrimp exports.

In contrast, Eduardo Ledesma, Executive Director of the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador, said that they see the sales growth of shrimp as something positive and the fact that the shrimp has overtaken bananas in a few months does not mean that the sale or production of the fruit has fallen.

“We’re growing and this year we are leading to a record figure,” said Ledesma, who projects for the end of 2014 reaching 290 million boxes and exceed the production of 2011 (284 million boxes).