Mark Godfrey is an Irish journalist covering the agriculture and fisheries sectors in Asia, with a focus on China. Proficient in Mandarin, he has frequently traveled across China's fisheries and aquaculture regions and learned the inner workings of China's corporate world during a nearly three-year stint at the Financial Times' “China Confidential” publication. He has also reported widely across Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. He has educational certificates in agriculture and food science, as well as Mandarin.
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Hong Kong has long boasted one of the world’s highest per-capita seafood consumption rates, but the closure in August of a high-profile seafood restaurant has highlighted the challenges facing the city’s seafood distributors.
Glorious Seafood Restaurant, located on the second floor of prominent mall Cheung Sha Wan Plaza, closed its doors without notice on 1 August, The Standard reported. The city’s Eating Establishment
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In the latest move to bolster its krill-fishing fleet, China has launched a new vessel off of the Shipu Port in the city of Ningbo.
The Yongli, which is 140 meters long, has a designed daily fishing capacity of 1,000 tons and is set to begin fishing in early 2026. It is the first Antarctic krill-fishing and -processing vessel to launch from the eastern province of Zhejiang.
The vessel also contains an automated krill-processing line that will
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North American markets and China were the fastest-growing buyers of Irish seafood exports in the first half of 2025, according to data from Bord Bia, the Irish government's food export promotion agency.
North American markets purchases of Irish seafood increased by 208 percent year over year by value to EUR 7.4 million (USD 8.7 million), and increased 460 percent by volume to 2,600 metric tons (MT) in the period.
Irish seafood sales to North
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U.S. NGO Heifer International is looking to launch a large-scale aquaculture project in Cambodia and is using the operations of Chinese firm Bohai Aquatic Foods as inspiration.
In late August, Heifer employees visited Bohai’s shrimp farm in the Eastern Chinese province of Shandong, which is one of the largest shrimp farms in China, to better understand the intricacies of running such a large operation.
Heifer Country Director for Cambodia
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Irish fish-processing companies are facing heavy raw material shortages, and many are placing the blame on E.U.-mandated regulations.
Kenny Ward, an operations, sales, and logistics lead at Sean Ward Fish Exports – a processing firm in Killybegs, Ireland – told national radio station RTE that his firm’s factory has remained idle since March as trawlers, primarily from foreign countries, have turned elsewhere instead of meeting
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Spanish authorities have launched a marketing campaign in China aimed at garnering interest in Spanish cuisine and drinks.
“Eat Spain Drink Spain” has been previously rolled out across several other nations but is making its Chinese debut across multiple cities, such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Chongqing, Wuhan, and more, from 13 to 26 September.
“The campaign is directed at all food and drink products from Spain, including,
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A fishery improvement project (FIP) focused on longline tuna fishing by Taiwanese vessels in the Pacific Ocean is nearing completion, but the nonprofit that implemented the FIP is cautioning that even after the project hits its end goal of securing Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) accreditation, there will still be plenty of work to be done to improve the work environments of fishers onboard these vessels.
Launched in April 2020, the Fue Shin
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Chinese shipbuilding firm Jianglong Shipbuilding has assembled and delivered its first workboat to Norwegian aquaculture vessel supplier Moen Marin.
The vessel – a 21-meter catamaran-style boat dubbed the Nabcat 2112 Hybrid – is one of two vessels Moen, which describes itself as the world’s largest supplier of working boats to the aquaculture industry, contracted Zhongshan, China-based Jianglong to build.
“The vessel
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