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Better quality but less harvest amid higher demand push fish prices
FILE: The Batac City Public Market touted as one of the biggest in the region offers a wide array of goods – freshly picked local vegetables and fruits, handicrafts, tincrafts, pottery, native delicacies, chicharon, longganisa, wet market treats and many others. The Delicia Center, located adjacent to the City Public Market, contains RTW shops, banks, appliance stores, farm supplies, pharmacies, groceries, a lottery outlet and many more.
The Delicia Center and the City Public Market form part of the commercial district of Batac City. (Photo by Bernard Spragg. NZ/Flickr, Public domain)
MANILA — Better quality of harvest and lower production amid higher demand pushed farmgate prices of most fish products in the first half of 2018, the Philippine Statistics Authority has said.
In its latest report released on Aug. 8, the PSA said fisheries’ average price per kilogram rose 8.09 percent in the first half of 2018 from yearago figures.
Price increases were noted in milkfish (11.10 percent), tilapia (2.53 percent), tiger prawn (7.42 percent), roundscad (7.16 percent), skipjack (1.43 percent), seaweed (39.07 percent), and other fisheries species (9.63 percent).
These species’ prices per kilogram have reached PHP101.45, PHP73.46, PHP498.17, PHP63.74, PHP64.35, PHP6.52 and PHP76.14, respectively, within January-June this year.
The price increases came amid drops in outputs on milkfish (-4.99 percent), tilapia (-2.01 percent), tiger prawn (-3.27 percent), roundscad (-9.56 percent), yellowfin tuna (-7.
92 percent), and other fisheries species (-1.25 percent).
Outputs on this products for the first half of 2018 reached only 172,110 MT; 178,030 MT; 20,290 MT; 95,010 MT; 50,620 MT; and 813,810 MT, respectively.
However, the average price for yellowfin tuna dropped 9.46 percent to PHP105.11 per kilogram this year from PHP116.
09 per kg in 2017.
January-June 2018 output for skipjack and seaweed correspondingly grew 8.03 percent and 4.03 percent this year to 135,760 MT and 673,030 MT, the PSA data showed.
