Support for PROMPERU’s efforts to strengthen exportable offer of fish and aquaculture products

(Lima, February 27, 2007).- The Andean Development Corporation and PROMPERU today signed an agreement to strengthen the export offer of products of fish and aquaculture species - such as horse mackerel, mackerel and trout - by providing producers with a technical standards manual to facilitate their entry or positioning on international markets.

CAF representative director in Peru Eleonora Silva Pardo, and PROMPERÚ Secretary-General Pilar Pajares Sayán signed the agreement, which focuses on promoting the internationalization of Peruvian companies in markets through tools designed to raise standards of quality of products and improve the image of Peruvian products abroad.

"We want to create awareness and an export culture of quality among economic agents in the sector and directly benefit the regions involved. This approach is essential in the current situation in which free trade negotiations with the European Union are about to begin," the CAF official said.

Silva stressed the work of the CAF Competitiveness Support Program for the signing of the agreement which guarantees that export levels will be maintained or increased for the three fish products with a target of 50% growth over the next three years.

The globalized fisheries trade requires stricter compliance with sanitary, technical and quality standards for processing of fish products; in this situation a set of technical standards is required to raise the competitiveness of these products on the international market, Silva concluded.

The PROMPERÚ secretary general said that the project aimed to prepare and distribute Peruvian Technical Standards (NTP) for horse mackerel, mackerel and trout in their frozen presentation.

"The dynamic annual growth (20% on average) of non-traditional exports in Peru requires the new productive sectors involved to comply with many requirements and adapt to increasingly strict quality standards for international markets."

The fisheries for human consumption sector, despite representing only 13% of non-traditional exports, has great potential based on growing external demand for Peruvian frozen fish, so technical standards to reinforce the positioning of the main export products are now indispensable, she added.

The official said that Prompex had recently prepared the technical standards for cuttlefish, prawns and anchovies - the three main export products for human consumption - followed by horse mackerel, mackerel and trout which are the subject of this technical cooperation agreement.

Peruvian exports of horse mackerel, mackerel and trout are currently $17.1 million, $10 million and $4.2 million, respectively and the main destinations are Europe, United States and South Africa.

The private sector is participating in this project through the National Fisheries Society (SNP) which will contribute comments and validations to the technical document and distribute the information to producers in the regions to reinforce application of the technical standards.

PROMPERU is a public decentralized agency, attached to the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR), which promotes exports of products and services, as well as tourism by publicizing the image of Peru. PROMPERU (formerly PROMPEX) carries out the ministry’s mandate to give priority to non-traditional export sectors with value-added and decentralized production.