Prices in the Egyptian seafood market: insights for fisheries management and food security

Abstract

Reliable information on seafood prices is essential for managing fisheries resources in a sustainable way and therefore to secure seafood sustainability. Unlike other aquaculture producing countries, Egypt does not export its production, which led to a very high self-consumption rate. These characteristics of the Egyptian seafood market make Egypt an atypical country in the region. This paper is the first attempt to analyse seafood prices and their temporal variation (2013-2018) in the Egyptian seafood market, as well as the evolution (1997-2018) of consumption per capita, the national self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) of seafood, consumer price index (CPI) and inflation rate in seafood prices. A steady increase in the overall seafood average price was observed until 2017 when prices almost doubled due to the devaluation of the Egyptian pound, and tripled in 2018. During the year, prices do not vary between months; except for slight peaks in April, August, October, and November, being maximal in December. Variation in seafood average prices are highest on Thursday and Friday. The average consumption in 2018 was 22.98 kg of seafood products per capita, reaching the highest rate in the last two decades. The self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) reached its maximum in 2009 at 90.64%. Despite an almost doubling of production from 1,093 thousand tonnes in 2009 to 1,935 thousand tonnes in 2018 the SSR has decreased to 86.66%. This analysis suggests that the current trends of annual increase in seafood prices exacerbate vulnerability to food security.