Finance and Investment Summit

High-value warm-water shrimp constitutes one of the largest seafood traded commodities in the world. Global shrimp output grew at a CAGR of some 7.3% since 2015 and reached ca. 5 mln tons in 2021, up 1.0 mln tons from 2020. The global production is forecasted to reach a further 10% growth to ca. 5.5 mln tons in 2022.

During the pandemic, high-value proteins such as beef, shrimp, salmon, etc., outperformed other proteins. In value terms, global shrimp exports in 2021 reached ca. USD 23.5 bln, up 17% from USD 20 bln in 2020. Looking ahead, long-term shrimp output is on a growth path due to both supply and demand dynamics.

Countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia account for the most significant share of shrimp supplies to the world markets. Seen long-term, warm-water shrimp supplies could double by 15 years or so if financing is available to fund the expected growth projections.

The 1st edition of the GSF Finance and Investment Summit comes at a critical time for the world seafood markets; considering the ongoing war in Ukraine, combined with a severe inflation and cost increases in supply and feed chain. Feed accounts for nearly 70% of the production cost in warm water shrimp farming — the most important cost driver.

The GSF Finance Summit will address the critical financing challenges facing the shrimp industry going forward, both in respect to large-scale financing of the major players and addressing the needs of the small-scale farmers requiring micro finance of various kinds.

This financing may come from large banks, governments, and international institutions as well as private capital from investment funds and high-impact investors now entering the market. These players will address and discuss the financing issues in some depth. In this session, leading companies will share their thoughts with us.

Over the past few years, new ESG-focused impact funds have come into the market, many looking at aquaculture as water SDG and food security impact investing. The funds bring focus on providing tech innovations and opportunities to streamline the industry, bringing in micro financing, feed optimization, innovative alternative feeds solutions; economics of scale in production, know-how and expertise and more. This signals a shift towards a more robust and sustainable water-water shrimp industry going forward. The 2nd part of this seminar will focus on learning a group of leading impact investor players views on their industry engagements and outlook for their shrimp financing business going forward.

This not-to-be-missed novel GSF Finance and Investment Summit 2022 will be of much importance for the shrimp industry worldwide.