MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Low prices, soaring costs, discourage Argentine jiggers

Argentina's squid season has had a poor start threatened by a weak demand and low prices, reports the newspaper El Chubut, from Puerto Madryn in the Patagonian province of Chubut.

"Most jigger owners are waiting for improved market conditions before going to sea", said the daily quoting industry sources. At the moment only 18 jiggers are operating south of parallel 44 according to the satellite monitoring system from Argentina's Fisheries Under Secretary. This is drastic contrast to last year when at this stage over 10.000 tons of squid had been landed compared to only one thousand currently, "With the average international price of 722 US dollars per ton, with domestic costs in constant increase and still relative abundance of squid at sea, catching Illex is not very attractive", adds the article in El Chubut. Argentine fishing businessmen complain bitterly that high seas competition, --plus 201 miles,-- from foreign fleets is getting worse and has become a real threat to the survival of the industry. "Markets are depressed among other things because of the tons and tons extracted with virtually no controls in mile 201 (almost 300.000 tons last year)", emphasized sources from the Argentine Fishing Industry Chamber. To make things ever more complicated, the Fisheries Research and Development Institute, based in Mar del Plata, INIDEP, has been suffering operational and labor problems which means "the seasonal cruise to determine conditions of the squid biomass and resource has yet to be organized and set to sea", concludes the article. In related news Argentina's Fisheries Under Secretary Gerardo Nieto and the National director of Fisheries Coordination Marcelo Santos were confirmed in their posts. The announcement was made by Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food, Javier de Urquiza.