A fish market is a marketplace for selling fish products. It can be dedicated to wholesale trade between fishermen and fish merchants, or to the sale of seafood to individual consumers, or to both. Retail fish markets, a type of wet market, often sell street food as well.
Trade in fish is common to all societies and has taken place from time immemorial. A fisher returning with more fish than is needed to meet personal needs will tend to exchange surplus fish for other goods or services. The distribution of fish globally is very uneven. Some places enjoy abundance far beyond the needs of the local population, while others may have no direct access to fisheries resources. This means that trade has a role to play in order to achieve a more even distribution of fish around the globe where the entire marketing chain is taken into account.
Trade has always played an important part of the fisher's livelihood, even in 'subsistence' fisheries. International fish trade has been increasing very rapidly in recent decades. An estimated 45% of the world catch is now traded internationally. The widespread use of refrigeration, and improved transportation and communications has facilitated a vast expansion of trade.
The theory of international trade tells that through free and unhindered trade we could optimize the benefits of fisheries resources for humanity as a whole. The idea of free trade in the fisheries, however, is often vehemently contested because there are often tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and other distorting factors, such as subsidies, present in trading relationships. Exchange of and access to information is vital to successful trade practices.
Important frameworks relative to trade in fisheries have been established. International trade rules have developed through several rounds of trade negotiations under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The last of these, the 1994 Uruguay Round, agreed to establish the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a number of important agreements with relevance to fisheries were concluded. The FAO Committee on Fisheries has a Sub-Committee on Fish Trade, which provides an intergovernmental forum for consultations on technical and economic aspects of trade in fish and fish products.
Trade in fish
In 1997, fishery exports were worth some US$ 51 billion. This represented 10 percent of the value of agricultural exports and about 1 percent of total merchandise trade.
Fishao Trade 2017
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Sorting prawns in Thailand for the lucrative export market |
Seychelles: Unloading frozen tuna |
Norway was the leading exporter in 1997 (6.6 percent of the total) followed by China, the United States, and Denmark (with more than 5 percent each) and Thailand - which was the leading exporter between 1993 and 1996. Japan is the leading importer. In fact, Japan, the United States and the European Community import 75 percent of traded fishery products, by value. Since fish is a highly perishable commodity, most of the international trade involves processed fish although live, fresh or chilled fish and shellfish are a small, but growing, element.
In value terms, frozen crustaceans - shrimp, crab and lobster - are the main items entering international trade, accounting for about 38 percent, followed closely by frozen fish at around 35 percent. Canned fish accounts for about 11 percent, with canned tuna the main item.
Fishmeal and fish oil have a 6 percent share of the global market. The remaining 10 percent consists of a wide variety of products as producers, particularly in developing countries, endeavour to add value to the raw material, whether it be from capture fisheries or aquaculture.
Fish exports are a valuable source of foreign exchange for many developing countries, including some small island countries. Their trade consists largely of high-value products. Globally, developing countries are net exporters of fishery products. Their surplus in foreign exchange earnings from fish trade was constantly increasing until 1995 (when it reached US$17.5 billion), but it eroded slightly in both 1996 and 1997.
Fishao Trade Rumors
Fishao Trade Online
Related links
The Fish Marketing Information Service