Roe imports hit record low
No Atlantic salmon eggs have entered Chile after the embargo imposed on roe imports from Iceland in October, while the number of trout eggs imported by Chilean companies so far this year has also been drastically reduced.
No Atlantic salmon eggs were imported into Chile in January, down from 7.4 million eggs in the same month of 2015. This is a consequence of the sanitary alert issued by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and generated by the presence of the Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia virus (VHS) in Iceland, after which Sernapesca published a resolution which suspended any importation of eggs from that country in late October 2015.
Afterwards, Sernapesca conducted a risk analysis that rated importation of eggs from Icelandic Stofnfiskur facilities Vogavik, Kalmanstjön and Kollafjørður as “acceptable”. That resolution is under public consultation since last month and that process should be concluded tomorrow.
According to a report recently published by Sernapesca, Chile imported 880,000 rainbow trout eggs in the first month of this year - a 63 per cent decrease compared to the 2.4 million eggs imported in January 2015.
The Chilean salmon industry imported nearly 300 million eggs in 2007 and 2008 but has been gradually reducing those imports since - to about 100 million in 2010, less than 50 million by 2013 and barely over 40 million in 2014 and 2015.
