Minister Katuska Drouet in the opening of the 2018 IX Nicovita Symposium in Panamá. (Photo: Ministerio de Acuacultura y Pesca)

Progress achieved towards integral aquaculture development

ECUADOR
Thursday, April 26, 2018, 22:30 (GMT + 9)

The Ecuadorian Government hopes that the development of the country's shrimp sector will respond to a healthy balance between its economic growth, social equity and environmental sustainability.

To achieve this purpose, it is working with the private sector on different fronts to enhance the value chain of this activity, which represented foreign currency revenues for the country amounting to USD 3 billion in 2017.

This was stated on Wednesday by the Minister of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Katuska Drouet, as part of the inauguration of the 2018 IX Nicovita Symposium, in the city of Panama.

In this forum, Drouet highlighted the efforts made by entrepreneurs in the sector in areas such as ensuring post larvae quality in laboratories, soil treatment and water quality in breeding pools. Also in the use of biological products, the use of controlled recirculation systems to avoid pathogens and the provision of quality diets, within the framework of strengthening the competitiveness of shrimp companies with links to international markets.

"Together with the private sector, we work to develop sustainability factors in the value chain of this activity, in areas that include certification of species management, access to markets through quality, as well as in the technification of processes and harvests to increase productive efficiency. The competitiveness of the sector is a product of the dynamic interaction between the State, companies and the organizational capacity of society," Drouet told an audience of more than 350 businesspeople and experts from more than eight countries.

"It has been 50 years of a daily work that we have done as a country to place ourselves currently as the second world exporter of the crustacean. The challenge is to continue competing with a first class product that complies with all production and environmental standards, substituting, in the minds of our producers and exporters, the income generated by the volume for the added value. And, in the case of consumers, repositioning the quality of the best shrimp in the world as a differentiating factor against our competitors," she added.

Drouet insisted that, in this line of integral support to the sector, the Ministry of Aquaculture and Fisheries is supporting the technification of production according to the change of the energy matrix with the Electrification Program for the Shrimp Sector. What is sought is the implementation of electrical energy for the processes of aeration, automatic feeding and pumping that are currently carried out with machinery powered by fossil fuels.

The objective is to provide electricity for 100,000 hectares, almost 50 per cent of the operating surface, and achieve an increase of 30 per cent in production. The State will invest around USD 200 million in the construction of the infrastructure for the electric service provision, while the shrimp companies will have to invest at least USD 550 million for the electrification of their operations (approximately USD 5,000 per hectare). According to the Government, it will be one of the largest sectoral investments in recent years.

The minister stressed that there are proposals to continue large investments in processing capacity, both shrimp and feed and inputs for the activity, so she invited investors to continue making investments on the country.

"Ecuador is the ideal platform for new investments, underpinned by its experience in the business, natural conditions, availability of human resources and incentives that the country offers to attract capital," said Drouet.

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