Impact Assessment of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Shrimp Exports in Thailand: An Empirical Study Using Time Series Analysis

Abstract

This study aims to assess the impact of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on Thailand’s shrimp exports in 2020 by applying the Box-Jenkins forecasting technique. A monthly time series from January 2011 to December 2019, comprising 108 months in total, which is the period before the COVID-19 pandemic, was used to forecast Thailand’s shrimp exports of frozen and flavored shrimp from January to December 2020. Subsequently, the impact assessment was calculated by comparing the shrimp export values for the case with and without the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical results reveal that the most suitable models for the estimate are (1) SARIMA(4,1,0)(0,1,1)12 for the export volume of frozen shrimp, (2) SARIMA(1,1,0)(0,1,1)12 for the export price of frozen shrimp, (3) SARIMA(2,2,3)(0,1,0)12 for the export volume of flavored shrimp, and (4) SARIMA(2,1,0)(0,1,1)12 for the export price of flavored shrimp. The impact assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic on shrimp exports in Thailand indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has positively affected frozen shrimp export at an impact valuation of 1325 million baht and flavored shrimp export at an impact valuation of 1632 million baht. The reason for this is due to the demand for shrimp exports from Thailand to replace the sharply reduced shrimp supply in the world market.