In general, US retailers seem to be reasonably satisfied with overall holiday sales in 2011. Many consumers opted for home cooking rather than eating at restaurants including the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

The year-end rally in the US stock market could indicate an improvement in consumer confidence, which would be good for shrimp consumption.

The import market is fairly quiet in January with only sporadic orders because of the inventory build-up in the market. However, market prices are not impacted; reduced availability of raw materials at origins, reviving import interests from Western Europe and good demand in East Asia are keeping prices stable in international trade.

The accumulated domestic landings to September totaled 89 757 tonnes, an increase of 53.5% in comparison with the same period of 2010. For imported supplies, the Lunar New Year celebration in East Asia will divert large supplies of fresh shrimp to the domestic and regional markets in China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan Province of China, Singapore, Viet Nam and Malaysia. Therefore, supplies from these sources will be very limited for frozen exports till the next harvest, which is due in April/May. 

Imports

Despite economic concerns, US shrimp imports went up compared with 2010, and they exceeded 2006´s imports, which were the highest in the past five years, by 0.5%.

Thailand remains the main exporter to the US market but with lower supplies than in 2009 and 2010, followed by Ecuador and Indonesia. In Latin American, Ecuador remains the second main provider to the US market with a 9% increase whereas imports from Indonesia rose by 15%. Supply from India rose by more than 83% with predominantly large sized vannamei.