« Société Mauritanienne de Commercialisation de Poisson »
(SMCP)

The Mauritanian state oversees the national fishing export trade through SMCP, based in Nouadhibou.

SMCP has been established in 1984 but is nowadays only 35 % state owned. It is the key Mauritanian player for what pertains to demersal catch.

With regard to exports, SMCP has a monopoly in term of marketing of fisheries products subject to the landing obligation (demersal products, including cephalopods).

Every 10 days SMCP define a Minimum Selling Price (Decade) for each type and category of fish, according to a Mauritanian decree (93-024 dated 27 January 1993).

SMCP sells Mauritanian catches on international market places at any price providing that it is higher than relevant MSP, as negotiated between producer and client.

Fresh products (exported by air freight), salted and dried fish and all demersal fish, once processed, are controlled by SMCP which mostly focuses on the marketing of cephalopods (70% of total amount in 1998) and of frozen whole fish, targeted to the Asian and European markets.

In 2001, SMCP exports were above 43,000 tons, for a total value of more than 103 million €uros. Approx. 60% of the exported products have been frozen on land, the remaining quantities having been frozen on board.

The main destinations are Europe (66% of the volumes exported by SMCP in 2001), Japan (26,5%) some countries in the African continent (7,5%).