A Chinese group is in talks with the government of Uruguay to build the nation's first fishmeal plant, sources in Uruguay told Undercurrent News.
 

The Chinese firm also hopes to get a license to fish anchovy -- possibly of around 40,000 metric tons -- in Uruguayan waters from the government, sources with knowledge of the matter told Undercurrent.
 

"At the moment there are only conversations between the government's relevant department and the authorities of the area where they would install and the company," one source told Undercurrent. He added that the private firm had not yet asked officially for the license, as it was still analyzing the project.
 

The interested company raised the intention and now is negotiating with the government to see if the business is viable, one of the sources added, pointing out that some representatives from the Chinese firm were currently in Uruguay holding meetings to discuss the project, set to be located in Rocha, Uruguay.
 

According to El Pais Uruguay, the interested Chinese company is the firm Helishen, but Undercurrent sources could not confirm this.

Meanwhile, no decisions were yet announced on the possibility of building a new Chinese terminal in Uruguay. 

European and Latin American firms operating in the south Atlantic Ocean had said they feel threatened by the planned construction of the new Chinese port. The project could have an irreversible impact on the squid fishery in the south Atlantic Ocean, sources told Undercurrent.

The port project, however, has yet to be approved and is not certain, sources said.

Meanwhile, Rossana Ortiz, CEO of Peruvian fishmeal producer Exalmar, has said publicly that higher anchovy catches in the current season will allow Peru to regain the market share in the fishmeal sector it held before the country's fishery was impacted by El Nino. From her vantage point in Peru, the highest fishmeal producer in the world, Ortiz also said that fishmeal demand from China remained strong.

The anchovy fishing quota in Peru for the current season was set as 2.8m metric tons, up 56% year-on-year.