The development of salmon aquaculture in Chile into an internationally competitive industry: 1985–2007

Since the mid-1980s, the Chilean salmon industry has steadily increased its annual production, propelled by a rapidly growing world demand for seafood (Montero 2004). The rapid expansion in production volume came hand in hand with the development of new institutions and new forms of social interaction among industry associations, universities, research institutions and other bodies. However, we can also observe that even at this incipient stage, there were already some imbalances in the co-evolutionary process. Chile achieved a successful ‘catch up’ in terms of nearing the production capacity of Norway (the largest exporter of salmon in the world) at the beginning of the first decade of the 2000s. However, this catch up was not comprehensive in all areas, particularly when we consider the aspects of innovation, development of local technological capabilities, sustainable production via monitoring of sanitation and environmental conditions, and overall institutions in general. Thus the process of industrial growth might not have been as successful as first impressions would suggest.