Desempenho Comparativo entre Países Exportadores de Pescado no Comércio Internacional: Brasil eficiente?

Abstract: The international trade of seafood has been expanding in the last decades, once it is pointed as of ample competition. As a way of understanding the dynamics of this trade, the objective of this research is to characterize the historical performance of seafood exporting countries in the international market, emphasizing Brazil, as well as verifying which countries foreign trade serves as a strategy of economic growth for the fishing sector and aquaculture. A performance matrix was elaborated according to the values and the trend in the historical series measured by the indices of comparative advantage revealed (IVCR) and relative position (IPR). It was verified that the efficiency of the dynamics of international trade of seafood is due to developed countries to the commercialization of fish mainly among them. In the case of Brazil, the performance was inefficient and decreasing, since fish is not an important factor in Brazilian exports as a whole, as well as the sale of the product to the foreign market is unskillful. Thus, the Brazilian seafood is not serving as a strategy of economic growth for the fishing and aquaculture sector, using international and domestic trade.