Abstract

With the development of fisheries and aquaculture, tilapia has become one of the closest species of aquatic products in contact with the international market. There are many factors which affect tilapia international trade. These factors are ultimately reflected in the volume and price of tilapia trade. In order to ensure the sustainable development of tilapia international trade, early warning system will play an integral role in forecasting the trade trends. Besides，the indicators system is the foundation to establishing early warning system. This paper summarizes different system indicators for early warning on tilapia import and export. As our case study, we selected 2 indicators, total export value and policy factor as warning situation's indicator. The total export value depends on export volume and price growth rate as warning promise index. The safety warning coefficient R, alarm limits, and the scope of the R reflect the different level of tilapia culture, analysis and prediction of changes in tilapia trading system. The indicators established in this study will give an insight to farmers, importers, and exporters as well as would be investors on the trend and dynamics involved in tilapia production and trading system.

Key words: Tilapia trade, early warning system, indicators.