Sri Lanka’s seafood exporters are targeting 200 million US dollars in sales from newly farmed king prawns within three years, an industry official said.
“We are hoping to get 200 million US dollars from vannamei (king prawn) exports by 2022,” said Dilan Fernando, President of Seafood Exporters’ Association of Sri Lanka (SEASL). Sri Lanka’s estimated shrimp exports for 2019 were US$20 million, a small fraction of the $ million in total seafood exports.
Export earnings from Seafood increased by 37.04% to US$ 25.53 Mn in August 2022 compared to August 2021. Except for shrimp & lobsters, export earnings from Frozen fish and Fresh fish increased by 69.88% and 56.39% respectively in August 2022.
In this back drop Dutch impact investor FMO has proposed a $ 10 million investment in one of Sri Lanka’s leading seafood exporters, which mainly employs underprivileged women including war widows.
Established in 2010, Taprobane Seafoods has one main processing facility and 14 smaller locations in the South Asian nation and employs over 2,000 people.
Taprobane processes blue swimming crab and white-leg shrimp, which it began farming two years ago.
It became the first Sri Lankan company to do so in response to a global shift in tastes for white-leg shrimp over black tiger shrimp.
Impact investors look to generate financial returns while also creating positive social and environmental impacts.
FMO said in a disclosure that the funds will be used for capital expenditure such as rehabilitating abandoned shrimp farms owned by Taprobane and third-party growers, investing in new farms and hatcheries and building a new processing facility.
“For us, the integrated ‘farm to fork’ business model is the main reason to partner with [Taprobane],” FMO said.
FMO last year provided a $ 40 million loan to long-term Sri Lankan client Nations Trust Bank, which supports smaller businesses.
The Bank serves over 600,000 customers and employs more than 3,000 people. FMO also provided a $ 15 million loan facility to LB Finance, a deposit-taking, non-banking financial institution.
The company offers purchase, finance lease and vehicle loan facilities in Sri Lanka and supports 600,000 midsize, small and micro clients.
