The overall growth in aquaculture production remains relatively strong owing
to the increasing demand for food fish among most producing countries. However,
aquaculture output by some industrialized regional major producers, most notably the
United States of America, Spain, France, Italy, Japan and the Republic of Korea, has
fallen in recent years. A decline in finfish production is common to all these countries,
while mollusc production has also decreased in some of them. The availability of
fish imported from other countries where production costs are relatively low is
seen as a major reason for such production falls. The resulting fish supply gap in
the aforementioned countries has been one of the drivers encouraging production
expansion in other countries with a strong focus on export-oriented species