Namibia’s fish export bill hit a record high in May this year after increasing to N$1.1 billion compared to N$697 million recorded in May 2022, latest data shows.
According to Simonis Storm’s monthly agriculture report, this was a ninth consecutive increase, representing 60.2% year-on-year (y/y) growth with most of Namibia’s fish exports going to Europe and Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states.
The hake, monk and crab sub-sectors are expected to land their quota, although horse mackerel and lobster are faced with challenges, which might have a limited catch in the winter months, according to the report.
Under the same period, fish inflation in June 2023 stood at 11.7%, lower than the 13.3% y/y recorded in May 2023 after reaching the highest annual rate since October 2017 at 18.2% y/y).
“June’s inflation was driven by fresh, frozen and chilled fish prices which went up by 12.8% y/y, tinned fish prices increasing by 5.2% y/y. This was compounded by dried, smoked and salted fish and seafood which also went up 12.8% y/y,” the report revealed.
“Meanwhile, engagements with stakeholders in the fishing industry revealed that the driver of these increases are the high fuel prices, impacting input prices such as ropes and nets used to catch fish.”
Overall, the report indicated that the fishing and fish processing sectors both expanded by 2.2% y/y in the first quarter of 2023.
Similarly, the agriculture sector showed small gains in Gross Domestic Product, expanding by 3.6% y/y in the first quarter of 2023, resulting in a contribution of about 4%, all inclusive to the economic growth.
“The second quarter stands out to be the best performer in each year, which could be due to higher slaughtering and marketing figures. This is likely the effect of the winter season forcing farmers to slaughter more of their cattle due to less feed,” the report noted.
In 2Q2023, heads marketed grew by 14.3% y/y mostly driven by sheep at 17.6% y/y, goats up by 4.6% y/y, including a positive of 8.5% y/y cattle heads marketed.
However, pigs marketed experienced a decline of 3.4% y/y. In total, the number of heads marketed in 2Q2023 recovered to 74.5% of the pre-pandemic peak in 2Q2019.
“Year-to-date, slaughtering activity has outperformed activity in the same period of previous years, posting a 22.7% increase in the number of heads slaughtered in 1H2023 compared to 1H2022. This increase is driven by cattle (↑ 20.2%) and sheep (↑ 37.2%), while goats (↓ 77.6%) and pigs (↓ 1.0%) weighed on activity. The number of heads slaughtered in 2Q2023 is still 49.4% short from reaching a pre-pandemic peak in 2Q2019,” the report stated.
Meanwhile, in June 2023, live exports recorded an increase of 11.6% y/y, compared to 6.0% y/y growth in May 2023. This growth was driven by higher sheep exports of 11.5% y/y and goat exports of 44.4% y/y, while cattle exports declined by 12.7% y/y, exerting downward pressure on the overall export.
