Report of Working Group on the evaluation of data collected on the fish processing sector (SGECA-10-04)

This SGECA-10-04 report, also known as the 2010 Annual Economic Report (AER) on the European Union (EU) Fish Processing Industry, is the second report of these characteristics that has been produced for the sector, after last year's SGECA-09-03 report. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the latest information available on the structure, social, economical and competitive performance of the fish processing industry at the national and at the overall EU level. The data used in this publication has been collected within the framework of the Data Collection Regulation (DCR) and the Data Collection Framework (DCF). In 2008, the fish processing sector in the EU had more than 3,800 companies that accounted for around 26 thousand million Euros of turnover and more than 4.3 million Euros of Gross Added Value. Showing a profitability (based on the return on investment calculated from the EBIT) of the 5.6%. The fish processing industry gave job to around 150 thousand people in the whole Europe, with an annual average wage of around 26 thousand Euros. The turnover per employee (in FTE terms) was of around 223 thousand Euros during 2008. The sector is suffering from very low margins due to increases in the raw materials and energy costs that cannot be translated into price increases. Moreover, the current economic crisis has affected the sector in very different ways, from a shift in the consumer's demand for cheaper products to increasing the difficulty to obtain credit.