Mark Godfrey

Key krill fishing and processing firms Aker QRILL Company and Aker BioMarine said they are optimistic member nations of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) are close to a consensus on new fishery measures after the commission met in Hobart, Australia without any significant announcement. In a joint statement to SeafoodSource, the two companies said “genuine progress” had been made toward… Read More

Joost Pompert, the owner of Falkland Islands-based Georgia Seafood, has claimed that longstanding territorial disputes between Argentina and the U.K. have allowed China’s squid-fishing fleet to overfish in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean. China’s fleet has been accused of chronic overfishing, as well as committing human rights and marine wildlife abuses, in the Southwest Atlantic for years, and a recent Environmental Justice Foundation report… Read More

In a September report, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) said human rights abuses, marine wildlife abuse, and lax regulations that enable overfishing are threatening the future of the Southwest Atlantic Argentine squid fishery. “Without urgent action, we are heading for disaster,” EJF CEO and Founder Steve Trent said of the situation. The report particularly called out China’s squid-jigging fleet as being guilty of contributing to… Read More

Despite numerous promises of infrastructure projects and the signing of fishery access agreements with African nations, China and the E.U. have done little to help African countries develop their own seafood-processing sectors, according to Edwin Ngwafor, the managing director of Timezone Marine Ventures, a Cameroonian fishing firm. Ngwafor told SeafoodSource that “both Chinese and European actors have little interest in a strong African… Read More

The Agricultural Bank of China, which possesses assets worth around USD 6 trillion (EUR 5.2 trillion), has signed a mariculture partnership agreement with the Guangdong Haifa Group, a subsidiary of the Guangdong Port and Shipping Group.

Under the deal, the bank will provide financing worth CNY 10 billion (USD 140 million, EUR 120 million) to Guangdong Haifa that will go toward expanding regional mariculture production and the development of

… Read More

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent threat of instituting a 100 percent tariff on all Chinese goods from 1 November onward has generated yet more uncertainty for Chinese seafood exporters.

“Although we don't know whether this will be implemented in the end, this has definitely disturbed all of our shipment plans,” said Josephine Wang, the head of export sales at Hainan, China-based tilapia producer Hainan Golden Spring Foods.

… Read More

Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), Ireland’s seafood development agency, has appointed Richard Donnelly as its interim CEO.

Donnelly currently serves as the development and innovation services director at the agency and will take on the CEO role starting 10 November, when BIM’s current CEO, Caroline Bocquel, will move on to a new position as CEO at Fáilte Ireland, a national tourism promotion agency. 

According to BIM, a

… Read More

The latest round of negotiations on establishing a comprehensive sharing agreement for Northeast Atlantic mackerel fishing in 2026 have begun, but tensions rose well before delegates from relevant coastal nations sat down together in London, U.K., starting on 16 October. Before the most recent talks began, Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industries, and Fisheries Deputy Director General and Chief Negotiator Ann Kristin Westberg decried a press… Read More

Worsening trade uncertainty and increases in raw material costs have created a “very challenging” environment for the Chinese whitefish-processing industry.

“Due to the high price on [headed and gutted] cod, haddock, and pollock, as well as uncertainties surrounding trade tariffs with the U.S., most processors have reduced their production scale by 20 percent to 50 percent,” David Jiang, the managing director of Unibond

… Read More

The Irish Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) has disputed fishing industry claims that new E.U. requirements for weighing catch and tracing vessels is creating a shortage of raw materials for processors.

Irish fishing representatives recently said that new, stricter monitoring requirements have led to foreign vessels taking their catch elsewhere, leaving processors in such coastal towns as Killybegs in the lurch.

“This system is

… Read More