The worst time for seafood-related industries in adecade' as Chinese businesses suffer amid government spending cuts Chinese seafood business are witnessing their worstperiod in a decade as government spending cuts take their toll, according to local reports.
Declining prices of high-end products and a government crackdown on "graft and extravagance" is taking its toll on the country's high-end seafood market, a report in the China Daily said.
Store owners at a seafood market in Northern Beijing told the paper they were disappointed by the sluggish levels of business for expensive aquatic products in recent months, which is the result of the ongoing decline in luxury catering across the nation. One shop owner told the paper “top restaurants havecut their demands for high-end products.
“Expensive seafood such as abalone and lobsters are difficult to sell, despite prices dropping 30 percent compared with last year.”
A kilogram of abalone now costs around CNY 80 ((€9.8/$13), against CNY 140 (€17.1/$22.8) a year ago, and a lobster can be bought for less than CNY100 (€12.2/$16.3). Abalone and lobster account for the majority of high-end seafood dishes in luxury restaurants in China.
Sales of imported dried seafood being sold in Jingshen Seafood Market in southern Beijing, for instance, have dropped two-thirds with almost zero demand from high-end restaurants, according to a report in China Securities Journal.
In such a depressed market, many high-end seafood traders have been forced to quit the businesses altogether, the journal added.
Bian Jiang, assistant director of the China CuisineAssociation, said a decline in retail and wholesale seafood sales is inevitable, as the catering industry slows, and the effects are also hitting other related sectors of the industry, from breeding, to feeding, fishing, and seafood imports and exports. "It has been the worst time for seafood-related industries in a decade," Bian said.
In December, the government launched a nationwide crackdown on graft and extravagance, which is now being blamed for what experts suggest is the biggest slowdown in the catering industry in a decade.
Revenues of high-end restaurants in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu were down at least 20 percent during this year's Spring Festival.