Trade Tracker
22 SeaFood Business April 2014 Visit us online at www.seafoodbusiness.com
Seafood trade reaches
record high in 2013
U.S. seafood exports hit $5 billion
Zepol Corporation is a
Minnesota-based company
working to provide the most
complete and up-to-date
U.S. trade data through our
subscription tools. TradeIQ™
is a U.S. Customs import Bill
of Lading database utilized
to fnd information about
competitors, suppliers, pros-
pects, and the products that
they use, market, or trans-
port. TradeView™ provides
U.S. Census data to visualize
the U.S. import and export
market. ComplianceMoni-
tor™ is a comprehensive tool
that proactively alerts users
of essential U.S. import trade
compliance information. For
more information visit www.
zepol.com.
I
t's no secret that
the United States
imports a large por-
tion of its seafood,
but in 2013 that trade
expanded even more.
Last year, U.S. seafood
imports increased by
10 percent over 2013
with a total value of
more than $13 billion,
the highest seen in the
last six years.
Te top seafood
imports included
shrimp, salmon and
crab, but shrimp is by
far the largest import-
ed species. Shrimp
and prawns account
for 29 percent of U.S.
seafood imports by
value and were worth
more than $4 billion
in 2013.
In terms of value,
17 percent of over-
all imports are from
Canada, an almost 7
percent increase from
2012. Other import
sources seeing growth
in value included In-
dia, with a 68 percent
increase from 2012,
and Chile with a 34
percent increase.
U.S. exports of sea-
food are also on the
All others
Russia
Mexico
Thailand
Ecuador
Vietnam
India
Indonesia
7%
6%
4%
3%
2%
23%
7%
7%
17%
Canada
14%
China
10%
Chile
Canada, China top import sources …
Top countries of origin for 2013 imports
20%
Canada
14%
Japan
21%
China
All others
Ukraine
Spain
France
Netherlands
Hong Kong
Germany
South Korea
4%
3%
3%
2%
2%
17%
6%
8%
… as well as export destinations
Top locations for U.S. exports
$0
$3
$6
$9
$12
$15
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008 2007
Seafood import prices on the uptick
Annual seafood import values, in billions of dollars
*Through November
rise, increasing 2 per-
cent from 2012 to
2013 with a value of
more than $5 billion.
Top seafood exports
in terms of value in-
clude the No. 1 lob-
ster, fsh meat and
fsh livers. Te United
States exported about
$450 million worth
of lobster in 2013, an
increase of 2 percent
from 2012. Most of
the seafood the Unit-
ed States exports is
destined for China,
Canada and Japan.
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