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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At a company event at its headquarters in Chengdu, China, in June 2023, Tongwei Foods President Chen Bo announced a trebling of the conglomerate’s processed seafood sales in 2022.
Tongwei, which is a major player in solar power and which has installed panels above many of its aquaculture facilities, has been keen to improve on its profit margins and shift away from reliance on its staple, low-margin aquafeed business. Tongwei recorded a
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McDonald’s China recently announced that it will now include the blue Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) eco-label on its Filet-o-Fish sandwiches, Double Fish burgers, and Kids Fish Fillet burgers, served in more than 5,000 restaurants nationwide.
The initiative, according to Gu Lei, chief impact officer of McDonald’s China, “will continue to help protect the vitality of the ocean.” Gu described McDonald's China as
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Even as inflation remains persistent in Western economies, China may be entering a period of deflation due to weak consumer spending and dwindling demand for imports and exports both globally and locally.
China’s overall imports fell by 6.8 percent year-over-year in June, following a 4.5 percent decline in May. Exports dropped by an even more drastic 12.4 percent in value, according to data from China’s customs administration, but
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Ocean Outcomes, a Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.-based nonprofit, recently established a fisheries improvement project (FIP) with Taiwan-based Fue Shin Fishery (FSF) that aims to improve environmental and labor standards on 10 longline tuna vessels in the Indian Ocean.
The wider goal of the FIP is “to improve fishery management strategies, environmental oversight, fishing practices, and crew welfare” on the 10 vessels, which net an annual
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China has experienced a surge in Russian seafood entering the country recently, and is reprocessing and selling much of it to markets that have banned Russian seafood imports, including the U.S.
Bilateral seafood trade between the China and Russia rose 80 percent in the first quarter of 2023, according to Robin Wang, head of seafood marketing agency SMH International in Shanghai. Overall, Sino-Russian trade rose 38.7 percent year-over-year in
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Several major seafood firms in southern China appear to be caught up in a crackdown on tax evasion.
The investigation is centered around some well-known names in the Chinese seafood sector in Guangdong province, with customers also helping Chinese police and tax authorities with their inquiries, according to a China-based seafood trader shipping seafood to international buyers.
The trader, who has been a reliable source of information on the
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Singapore Crawfish is pivoting away from the Chinese market in favor of capitalizing on rising seafood consumption in majority-Muslim countries, according to CEO Desmond Chow.
Chow said the company is looking toward fast-growing economies and populations in the Middle East and Southeast Asia for expansion, calling demand for halal-certified seafood products there potential “gold mine.”
“We are looking for partners in
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The Solomon Islands Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Nestor Giro signed a memorandum of understanding with the head of state-owned China National Fisheries Corp. (CNFC) during a visit to Beijing on 16 May.
The MoU will “allow CNFC to invest in [the] Solomon Islands in areas of mutual interest,” according to a Solomon Islands government statement. While the MoU dodges specifics, the aim from the Solomon Islands is to
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The free trade agreement (FTA) signed on 11 May by Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao and Ecuadorian Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment, and Fisheries Julio José Prado has received a positive response from Chinese seafood distributors, but there are worries among other involved parties that the deal may skew largely in China’s favor.
Bilateral trade between Ecuador and China grew to a record USD 13 billion (EUR
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Chinese fishing company Dalian Ruitaifeng is sending three recently refurbished vessels to Guinea as part of an expansion of its operations in the West African nation.
Dalian Ruitaifeng launched the three vessels and what the company described as a “new dragnet trawler with onboard freezers.” The company told Chinese state-owned media that the vessels would fish for cuttlefish, horse mackerel, and hairtail, as well as grouper for
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