(IntraFish) Russian pollock producers are considering an opportunity to process in North Korea, the director of the industry association, German Zverev, told IntraFish.
North Korean authorities have approached Russian pollock producers with an offer to process their fish at a new factory in Rason, an ice-free port formerly known as Rajin-Sonbong, or Radjing, Zverev said.
“We have received an official proposal from North Korean authorities [saying] that they have built a new factory in Radjing and are very interested in pollock processing. We have just started to consider this opportunity,” Zverev said in a Q&A with IntraFish.
Zverev (pictured) is the head of the Russian Pollock Association (PCA), whose 45 members catch around 73 percent of the total Russian pollock quota in the Sea of Okhotsk and West Bering Sea.
China’s rising labor costs have seen Asian countries such as Vietnam and North emerge as alternative places of processing to China, and these places are interested in processing pollock, Zverev said.
“The costs of processing in China have risen dramatically, primarily because of a sharp increase of labor costs. This could be a sensitive drive for global processing to become more spread out across countries,” Zverev said.