On the Pacific coast of Honduras, thousands of shrimp farmers and workers in the sector are despairing of the breakdown of relations with Taiwan which threatens the biggest export market for these crustaceans.
“We don’t want trade with Taiwan to cease,” said Lorena de Jesus Zelaya, 51, commenting on the severance of diplomatic relations with the nationalist island last month in favor of Beijing.
With her, some 800 other women work in a factory in Choluceta (85 km south of Tegucigalpa) to pack the shrimp which, frozen, will leave in refrigerated containers for Taiwan, Mexico and Europe.
Leftist President Xiomara Castro’s Honduras is the fifth Central American country to break away from the island in Central America. Now, only 13 states in the world still maintain official relations with Taiwan.
In the name of the “One China” principle imposed by Beijing, Honduras has pledged to “no longer have official relations” with Taiwan, which seems to sound the death knell for the Free Trade Treaty with the nationalist island. in force since 2008.
In work clothes — apron, hat and rubber boots — Lorena de Jesus told AFP that she “has been working for 31 years” in the shrimp industry, which exports more than a third of its production to Taiwan for some $100 million.
The prawns are raised in large artificial ponds supplied with seawater from the nearby Gulf of Fonseca. Launched in the 1970s, shrimp farming (or peneculture) has flourished since: now 324 farms occupy more than 24,500 hectares in the region.
“Losing the Taiwan market, for Honduras, which is a producing country, is very complicated: Taiwan is a high-value market, where our shrimp sell for almost double the price of China,” explains Yader Rodriguez, one of the business leaders in the sector.
“We are very worried about what can happen with this political decision” to break with the nationalist island, insists the entrepreneur, aged 46.
It is true that the sector represents approximately 23,000 direct jobs between farms and packaging and shipping plants, and even at least six times more if indirect jobs are counted.
Already, the National Association of Aquaculturists of Honduras has been able to express, during several meetings with the authorities, its fears that Taiwan will simply refuse to buy shrimp from the small Central American country now.
The association, explains its president Juan Carlos Javier, has requested that the government write a letter to Taiwan asking for the continuation of trade relations despite the severance of diplomatic relations.
“The government is listening and is willing to look for solutions,” admits Mr. Javier.
“All the families are worried (…) because of this (commercial) treaty that we want to break,” said Carlos Abrego, 28, who works for a company in the sector.
“We are really very worried because, where we live, losing a job or suffering a loss of salary is very serious,” added Pedro Antonio Martinez, a 34-year-old worker responsible for feeding shrimp in a farm.
Shrimps are the fifth agri-food export product from Honduras, after coffee, bananas, sugar and palm oil. Last year, the country’s total exports amounted to $6.1 billion, of which nearly $130 million went to Taiwan.
04/07/2023 05:24:37 – Choluteca (Honduras) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
