Romania produces less and less fish

Global fish and seafood production has grown strongly in recent decades, supported by the expansion of aquaculture, but Romania is following an opposite trend, with decreases in both farmed fish and catches from fishing, according to an analysis by Our World in Data.

Globally, the growing demand for fish and seafood products has put increasing pressure on wild fish stocks, and the development of aquaculture – raising fish in controlled environments – has reduced this pressure. Currently, aquaculture production has exceeded fish catches from the wild.

According to the analysis, the world’s population has doubled in the last 50 years, average per capita consumption has doubled, and global fish and seafood production has quadrupled compared to half a century ago.

Cigarette black market remains high, at levels higher than in 2025 and 2024

Record: Romania to Export Over 1 Million Sheep and Carcasses to Algeria in 2027

In the 1960s, aquaculture was a niche activity, with an annual production of only a few million tons. The pace of growth accelerated in the late 1980s, so that by 1990 production had reached 17 million tons. Currently, more than 100 million tons of fish are produced worldwide through aquaculture.

In 2023, the latest year for which data are available, global production of fish caught from seas and oceans was 88 million tons, most of which came from East Asia and the Pacific region, with 36 million tons. At the same time, aquaculture production rose to 127 million tons, from just 2 million tons in the 1960s. Wild fish catches have not increased since the early 1990s.

In Romania, however, the trend is the opposite. In the 1960s, aquaculture fish production was 13,700 tons, and in 2023 it dropped to 11,200 tons. During the communist period and even in the early 1990s, Romania exceeded 50,000 tons of aquaculture fish, but in the last three decades the sector entered a downward trend. Production fell to 8,000 tons in 2014, temporarily returned to around 13,000 tons in 2015-2016, and later dropped again to 11,200 tons.

Fishing also followed a similar trajectory. If in 1960 Romania had a production of around 24,300 tons, in 2023 it reached only 6,613 tons. At the end of the 1990s, catches exceeded 200,000 tons, mainly from the Black Sea, but part of the fleet was sold or decommissioned, new rules were introduced, legislation changed, and the activity became less and less attractive.

Amid this decline, Romania currently imports over 100,000 tons of fish and fish products, ten times more than it exports, and domestic production covers only 13% of consumption.

INS data show that, in recent years, the total fish consumption of Romanians has remained relatively constant, at 6.4 – 6.5 kilograms per capita per year, the equivalent of approximately 122,000 tons annually.

After rice, where the self-sufficiency rate is 8%, fish and fish products represent the basic agri-food category with the second lowest coverage rate of local production. Imports of fish and fish products are approaching 500 million euros.

In this context, the authorities are trying to revive the sector. The Minister of Agriculture, Florin Barbu, announced plans to develop Romanian aquaculture and signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at exporting several agri-food products to China, including from this sector.