Total exports of Peru's fishing sector, both traditional and non-traditional, amounted to 994 million 724 thousand dollars between January and May of 2008, a 16.5 percent rise over the same period last year when exports reached $853 million 714 thousand dollars, reported today the Peruvian Exporters' Association (Adex).
According to Adex, the fastest growing sub-sector was the traditional fishing which with a positive change of 18.8 percent over the same period last year, accumulated sales for 729 million 598 thousand dollars, accounting for 73.3 percent of participation.

Meanwhile, the non-traditional fishing sub-sector grew by 10.4 percent and accounted for 26.7 percent of the value of exports in the fisheries sector so far this year. Its exports totaled 265 million 126 thousand U.S. dollars, a slightly increase of $240 million 64 thousand compared to last year's same period.

It said that within the traditional fishing sub-sector, the most important item was fishmeal with sales for 603 million 115 thousand dollars, accounting for 60.6 percent of the total.

In the first five months of the year, exports of this product increased by 7.4 percent compared with same period last year.

In volume terms, sales grew 17.3 percent from 542 thousand to 707 thousand tons, which corresponds to a decrease in the value of the average export price of fishmeal in the aforementioned period, which was 0.85 U.S. dollars per kilo, while in the same period last year was 1.04 dollars.