The fall of the Thai baht, which fell to a six-year low over the summer of 2015, remains weak against the dollar, leading to increased exports of Thai farmed shrimp and increased farm-gate shrimp prices. In the first week of December 2015, farm-gate prices continued to rise, driven up by aggressive buying and lower-than-expected harvests from other shrimp farming countries in Asia.
For example, between November 30 and December 5, 2015, prices for 60-count-a-kilogram, whole shrimp reached $4.87–$5.00, compared to $4.45–$4.98 a week earlier. This marks the third consecutive week that prices have advanced.
Satasap Viriyanantawani, General Manager of Siam Canadian Foods/Thailand, an Asian frozen seafood supplier headquartered in Bangkok, said: “Actually prices have been continuing to move up over the past two to three weeks and are still moving up, but during the past ten days, prices went up significantly. That’s because several packers are buying more aggressively, trying to complete their orders and ship out before deadline.”
One USA buyer attributed the increasing prices to shortages in other shrimp farming countries, particularly India. He also said Vietnam has little production, and what it does produce is going to China. Another factor to be taken into consideration is the Chinese New Year, which falls on February 8, 2016. China must place its orders now to get shrimp on grocery store shelves by the New Year.
Source: Undercurrent News [eight free news reads every month]. Editor, Tom Seaman (undercurrent@undercurrentnews.com). Thai Shrimp Prices Rocket on Buyer Activity Surge. Ross Davies (ross.davies@undercurrentnews.com). December 9, 2015.