Abstract
Despite the growing importance and high priority assigned by the EU policy makers to the development of aquaculture, little attention has been given to analyze the economic performance of the sector at EU level. Recently, the profitability of the EU aquaculture sector has been estimated by the European Commission’s Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF). However, the few studies that have estimated the profitability of the EU aquaculture sector show sometimes divergent results. In this paper, the economic performance of the EU aquaculture sector is analyzed by country, segment and main species for the years 2006, 2009 and 2010 using financial and accounting data extracted from the Amadeus database and results are compared to other studies. This analysis helps to understand the methodological differences between the diverse sources. Moreover, this alternative methodology offers a simpler and faster alternative to the STECF’s profitability estimates of the aquaculture sector. The analysis indicates that after the economic downturn, companies started to recover profits in 2010 in almost all segments and countries, and that the highest profitability is recorded by companies in the marine segment as compared to freshwater and shellfish.
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Notes
Annual EU aquaculture production is estimated to be 1.36 million tones in 2010 according to STECF (2013), and 1.30 million tones in 2009 according to EUROSTAT (2013) data. Total EU-27 landings in 2010 from capture fisheries accounted for 5.39 million tones, including 1.03 million tones from inland waters (FAO 2012).
Article 2, of the EC Regulation No. 762/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on the submission by Member States of statistics on aquaculture and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No. 788/96, defines “production” as the output from aquaculture at first sale, including production from hatcheries and nurseries offered for sale. It should be noted that total sales it is then used as an estimate of total production. Even both variables can have a similar evolution over time, they can be different year by year. This happens because companies may decide to keep more or less fish on stock depending on the economic expectations, and because there are long-live species that may take several years to grow. On this last case, production (in weight terms) takes place every year, but the sale may only take place at the last year of the production.
Equivalent to 4.11 billion US$, using an exchange rate of 1 EUR equal to 1.3257 USD, following European Central Bank exchange rate data. STECF (2013) estimated the EU aquaculture production to be worth 3.58 billion Euros, and Eurostat (2013) 3.22 billion Euros in 2009. EU fisheries turnover (excluding Greece) is estimated to be 6 billion Euros in 2010 (STECF 2012a).
The Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (in French: Nomenclature statistique des activités économiques dans la Communauté européenne), commonly referred to as NACE, is a European industry standard classification system.
18 companies were classified A.3.2.0.
For 2011 data was only available for a reduced number of companies at this time stage.
STECF (2013) estimates that in 2010 the total sales (production) of the EU (27) shellfish aquaculture were 0.72 million tones and 1.12 billion Euros, of the marine aquaculture were 0.51 million tones and 1.57 billion Euros, and of the freshwater aquaculture were 0.31 million tones and 0.91 billion Euros.
Given the low number of companies for which data was available conclusions for 2011 have to be taken with caution.
Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.
The EU aquaculture production in terms of volume amounted to 1.3 million tons in 2006 according to FAO and Eurostat.
Available full data from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, and for Germany and Slovenia only available marine aquaculture data.
Available full data from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden, and for Germany, Poland and Slovenia only available marine aquaculture data.
Available full data from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden, and for Germany, Poland and Slovenia only available marine aquaculture data.
Data from the smallest companies present problems due to the lack of certain parameters or their very low scale.
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Guillen, J., Natale, F. & Fernández Polanco, J.M. Estimating the economic performance of the EU aquaculture sector. Aquacult Int 23, 1387–1400 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-015-9891-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-015-9891-x