Soaring global demand for fishery and aquaculture products has made seafood the world's most traded animal protein, worth $164 billion in 2021, according to the latest seafood trade map and report compiled by Rabobank, the Dutch cooperative bank. The 10-year period from 2011 to 2021 has a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 2.4%.

Soaring global demand for fishery and aquaculture products has made seafood the world's most traded animal protein, worth $164 billion in 2021, according to the latest seafood trade map and report compiled by Rabobank, the Dutch cooperative bank. The 10-year period from 2011 to 2021 has a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 2.4%.

Rabobank's "Map of The World's Seafood 2021" found that nearly half of all trade last year went to the European Union, the US and China, which together imported more than $80bn. According to the analysis, in 2021, the Marine trade scale about beef (the second largest animal protein trade) of 3.6 times, is the world's pork trade scale of five times, eight times that of the poultry trade scale, at the same time, each year more than 55 single transaction of more than $400 million deal, there are 19 of between $200 million and $400 million deal.

Novel Sharma, seafood analyst at Rabobank, said developing countries play an important role in seafood exports, accounting for seven of the top 10 exporters, with developed countries increasingly relying on developing countries to import high-value seafood, especially popular products. Shrimp from India and Ecuador and salmon from Chile.

According to Rabobank, seafood trade between the "three parties" -- from Norway to the EU to the UK -- remains the most valuable industry trade flow, worth more than $8.7bn and consisting mainly of farmed salmon; In second place was Canada's trade flows to the United States worth $5 billion, mainly crustaceans (excluding shrimp) worth $3.34 billion; It was followed by seafood trade flows from India to the US worth $3.3bn, driven mainly by sales of farmed South American white shrimp, which accounted for 80 per cent of India's exports to the US.

The 27 COUNTRIES of the EU plus the UK remain the world's largest market for seafood by value, importing more than $34 billion worth last year and growing at a compound annual rate of 2% since 2013, the analysis said.

In 2021, us seafood imports totaled us $28.1 billion, up US $8.6 billion from 2016, with a compound annual growth rate of 6%. Shrimp, salmon, crab and lobster were the main imported products.

China's seafood imports, valued at $17.2 billion, grew at a compound annual rate of 4.4 percent from 2013 to 2021, while the value of imports grew at a compound annual rate of 10.1 percent, indicating a shift in demand toward more expensive seafood.

There is a global trend in favour of high-value seafood, according to Research by Rabobank, which found that the COVID-19 pandemic has further strengthened the market for already high-demand products such as prawns and salmon, further evidenced by a strong rebound in imports in 2021, Market demand for prawns, fishmeal, crab and salmon all saw double-digit year-on-year growth.

Gorjan Nikolik said high-value proteins such as beef, shrimp and salmon outperformed other protein products during the pandemic, with trade volumes up 16 percent, 17 percent and 20 percent, respectively, year on year.

Sharma and Nikolik both expect market demand for sustainable and healthy seafood to continue to drive trade in high-value species in the coming years, but Nikolik noted that recent data suggest that a recession in the second half of 2022 or 2023 would affect the value of seafood market prices and trade flows.