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Samvel Avagyan

Crunchy Delicacy: Europe Loses its Taste for Armenian Crawfish

While Armenian exporters have never received licenses to market fish to European Union countries, locally grown crawfish (both live and processed) was recently a big hit in Belgium, France, Germany and Austria.

Sales to Europe overall have been cut in half, of late, and crawfish exports to France have dropped threefold.

The U.S. and Europe have started to give preference to either cooked or frozen crawfish for hygienic reasons. Some countries, like Sweden, have banned imports of the live variety altogether.

Despite slumping sales to Europe, Armenian exports of fish and crawfish soared in 2013, mainly due to sales to Russia.

While there are 22 firms in Armenia engaged in fish and crawfish processing, only two or three are capable of meeting European standards when it comes to crawfish. In Russia, sitting down to a meal of the live crustacean is considered a delicacy and the demand is going up.

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Armenia appears well placed to profit from growing demand given that a high natural crawfish growth rate has been observed in the country’s rivers and lakes in recent years.

To harvest crawfish, all one needs is to sign a contract with Armenia’s Ministry of Nature Protection and pay a 50 dram environment usage fee for every 12 kilos. Those caught harvesting crawfish without a contract are fined 100,000 dram.

Overall, in 2013 Armenia exported 2,200 tons of fish, valued at US$17 million, and 4,300 tons of crawfish valued at $15.1 million. The average customs valuation for one kilo of fish is $7.7 and $3.5 for crawfish.

In 2012, fish exports rose by 33% and crawfish by 200%.

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90% of the fish and 88% of the crawfish is currently exported to Russia. The year before only 70% of total crawfish exports went to Russia. The one year jump resulted from import restrictions being removed from four Armenian companies.

Armenia also exports smaller amounts of fish to Georgia (1.4 tons) and Ukraine (one ton). Armenia also exports crawfish to Belgium (115 tons), Luxembourg (67 tons), Germany (36 tons), France (7 tons) and Austria (3.6 tons). Much smaller amounts go to the U.S. and the Czech Republic.

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