The Chinese seafood consumption market continues to expand at a break-neck pace, according to a new report from the USDA.
A rise in income and shifts in lifestyle are fuelingdemand for seafood – high-end seafood in particular – and US seafood exporters have a big opportunity to take advantage,according to a new report from the US Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS).
“Overall China has become a seafood superpower and is playing a significant role in the global business not only as the largest consumer, but also producer, exporter and importer of seafood products in the world,” the FAS wrote in the report, noting that China now accounts for 40 percent of the world’s fisheries and aquaculture production, according to Chinese customs data.
High-end US seafood exports to China grew at a faster pace than more traditional products shipped to China’s reprocessing and re-export areas, the report notes, more evidence that China’s demand for seafood is beginning to command more interest among domestic suppliers.
According to China’s Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Chinese seafood companies exported 2.7 million metric tons of fish and seafood products worth over $13.4 billion (€10.1 billion) in the first three quarters of this year – a4.4 percent decrease involume, but an 8 percent increase in value, FAS reports.
China’s imports, meanwhile, reached nearly 1.8 million metric tons of seafood, worth $3.9 billion (€2.9 billion) – 4 percent higher in volume, and 8 percent lower in value. Russia is the largest supplier of seafood to China,followed by the United States.
In the first nine months of the year, exports to China from the United States were at 280,774 metric tons, worth $726.5 million (€549 million) – a decline of 16 percent involume and 8 percent in value over the same periodlast year.
While high-end seafood exports from the United States into China have slowed, it is not a result oflower demand, the FAS wrote, but as a result of tighter inspection procedures.
US seafood companies exported 476,224 metric tons ofseafood worth over $1.1 billion (€830 million) in 2011, a 33 percent increase in volume and a 56 percent increase in value.