Abstract
This article investigates the relation between fish supply volumes and sales values in El-Obour wholesale market. The study also examines market cointegration between farmed tilapia and imported wild frozen fish (tilapia, mackerel, Mediterranean horse mackerel, sardine and lizardfish). Regression and Johansen cointegration analysis was used for market data analysis. Market data includes fish sales volume and prices in El-Obour wholesale market in 2012. The results indicate that there is a negative relationship between the volume of farmed tilapia supplied to the market and sales values. Cointegration analysis shows that tilapia grade 1 and 2 prices compete together in market while catfish does not compete with farmed tilapia. Frozen lizardfish and sardines prices are cointegrated with tilapia grades 1 and 2 while tilapia grade 3 competes with lizardfish and Mediterranean horse mackerel, but there was no evidence of market cointegration between catfish and frozen wild fish. The implications are important as increased tilapia supplies to the market leads to declining sales prices. In addition, there is market competition between wild frozen fish and farmed tilapia, however they are not fully integrated. Increasing imports of frozen fish could reduce the selling price of farmed tilapia and negatively influence investment in fish farms.
Highlights
Aquaculture plays an important role as the main source of fish for Egyptian consumers
For Tilapia grade 1 (T1), increasing the supply by 1% would lead to a -0.472% change in sales price
A similar inverse relationship was established for frozen mackerel where an increase in sales volume of 1% would lead to a 0.193% reduction in selling price
Summary
Aquaculture plays an important role as the main source of fish for Egyptian consumers. While 3500 year-old Pharaonic tomb paintings of fish ponds show that fish farming has a long history in Egypt, the rapid rise in aquaculture production has taken place since the early 1980’s. Egyptian aquaculture increased from 367,000 t in year 2002 to reach 1,018,000 t in year 2012 [1]. Despite this success, the Egyptian aquaculture industry faces a potential market crisis. Almost all aquaculture-produced fish is sold whole in fresh or live form to Egyptian consumers as there is very little value addition or export of farmed fish [3,4,5,6]
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