Australian Seafood Industry

http://seafood.tradeworlds.com/

Introduction

Overview of Industry Importance and Value

The Australian commercial fishing and seafood industry encompasses the wild catch sector, the aquaculture sector and the processing and retail seafood sectors (Austrade, online). The aquaculture and wild catch sectors are found on the country's vast land space which gives Australia the distinction of having the "world's third largest fishing zone covering 11 million square kilometres and extending 200 nautical miles out to sea" (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, online). It spans a number of climatic zones resulting in the increase in the aquatic environments that can be broadly divided into oceans, reef, inshore area and freshwater habitats. This is also probably why it has the distinction of being one of the most diverse marine faunas in the world because of its "geographical isolation from other continents and wide range of habitat types that include tropical to sub-Antarctic waters" (dfta, online). This diversity, coupled with the clean aquatic environment that the government has endeavoured to achieve, mean Australia is able to supply a vast collection of delicious seafood products worldwide.

Annual Sales Turnover of Seafood Industry in Australia

According to the Australian Seafood Industry Council (ASIC, online), total value of Australian seafood exports on average is around AUD$1.84 billion per annum. In the last financial year, it raked in AUD$2.2 billion in production. The seafood industry is the fourth most valuable food industry, after beef, wheat and milk (Austrade, online). Most recent figures from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation show a potentially positive performance and outlook for the seafood industry.

Among the key commodities in the seafood industry are tuna, prawns, rock lobster, crab, abalone, scallops and oysters. Figure 1.1 shows the share of the fishery production across Australia.

Figure1.1

(Source: Seafood Industry Victoria, online)