11/10/2009

CHILE: subsidies for the salmon farming sector

Even if the titled of this blog is fisheries subsidies the readers will have noticed that, from time to time, posts appear on subsidies granted to the aquaculture sector.

Needless to say that fisheries and aquaculture have cross-linkages. These linkages may be weaker or stronger depending on a number of factors, e.g. the famed species. The nature of the linkages may also differ, in some cases it is through the environment that the linkage exists (e.g. fishing down the food chain to produce fish feed, escapes of farmed fish, etc.) in other cases the linkages might be of through the market (e.g. famed species competing with wild catch species).

Now, after with this introduction, let’s have a look at the subsidies provided by the Chilean government to the salmon farming industry, the second world’s largest producer of salmon after Norway. This industry suffered a major set-back in 2009 because of the outbreak of Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA).

To help companies survive the crisis the Chilean government is providing through an agency called CORFO (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción), the Chilean Economic Development Agency, government backed guarantees to banks so that they can loan funds to companies in the salmon farming industry.

According to the information published in CORFO’s website the government is providing guarantees up to USD 8 million per company (producers or suppliers). The trade press has mentioned that around USD 400 million in guarantees will be available.

Here is the link to COFO’s website with the information (in Spanish) on the above guarantees:


Here is an article of the Diario Financiero on the subject:

No comments: