AIDF Project 10 – Processor Assistance Package

This project enabled the Tasmanian Abalone Council (TACL) to provide timely and direct financial support to abalone exporters who suffered significant financial loss due to the sudden (and unexpected) cessation of the China market for live abalone in January 2020.

The Assistance package was open to all Tasmanian licensed abalone processors who were holding live abalone in tanks destined for Asian markets when the market “shut down” on 24th January 2020 (with final shipments leaving Australia on January 26th January 2020). In the days prior to the “shutdown”, processors were receiving live abalone to fill orders from China and Hong Kong for which they had committed to pay a beach price of $70/kg. Immediately following the China market “shutdown”, the value of the live abalone was reduced significantly – down to $40 to $45/kg. This sudden and unexpected drop in value resulted in immediate and substantial financial losses to processors.

The TACL Processor Assistance Package was established to ameliorate a portion of those losses.

A secondary objective was to ensure Tasmanian abalone exporters actively reduce future market risk through engagement with the Tasmanian Department of State Growth and/or the Commonwealth Departments of Trade and Agriculture in any future initiatives aimed at marketing and/or market diversification. Processor companies who were the recipients of this assistance program were expected to actively participate “in good faith” in any future activities aimed at reducing market risk.