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.
Author Archive
A renewed emphasis on domestic food security introduced recently by China’s government could result in a shift in how the country’s aquaculture sector operates.
At the Central Rural Work Conference in Beijing, China, in mid-December, China President Xi Jinping reissued a call for the country to become more self-reliant through increased grain production and improving farming practices through the adoption of agricultural best
… Read More
JD.com is cutting some executive salaries by up to 20 percent and is creating a CNY 1.4 billion (USD 200 million, EUR 189 million) employee benefits fund in an effort to align itself with China President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” campaign to reduce inequality.
The move is significant in light of recent regulatory moves by Beijing against key Chinese Internet economy companies, in part to establish state
… Read More
Wealth is concentrating at an accelerating level in China, even as growth of the country’s economy slows.
On Tuesday, 19 December, the World Bank cut its growth outlook for China for 2022 and 2023, citing the impact of "the abrupt loosening of strict COVID-19 containment measures and persistent property sector weakness," according to Reuters. The World Bank forecast China's growth at 2.7 percent for 2022, down from its previous prediction
… Read More
Reykjavik, Iceland-based processing-equipment maker Marel has scored another sale in China, where consumer demand for salmon continues to grow.
He Yu Frozen Foods Co., also known as Shanghai Hollywin Frozen Food Co., has purchased two new SC 250MA model salmon-cutting machines, according to Marel.
He Yu, which describes itself as a European company, supplies high-end retailers and restaurant chains in China, including ...
Photo courtesy of
… Read More
Ireland Fisheries Minister Charlie McConalogue said in an address to Ireland’s parliament that the country is making progress in achieving sustainability for its fish stocks.
In 2022, 38 stocks of interest to Ireland were fished below maximum sustainable yield, up from 20 stocks in 2013, McConalogue said.
“The number of stocks overfished is 15 in 2022, but it must be noted that this is down 22 in previous years,” he said,
… Read More
More than 80 percent of Chinese manufacturers are facing labor shortages equivalent to 10 to 30 percent of their workforces, according to a survey by a Chinese human resources consultancy.
The research by China International Intellectech Co. (CIIC) aligns with data from China’s Ministry of Education and Ministry of Human Resources, which have both predicted a shortage of ...
Photo courtesy of Dmitry
… Read More
The Nasdaq Stock Exchange allowed the resumption of trading in publicly traded shares of Pingtan Marine Enterprise, which was sanctioned by the U.S. government on 9 December.
Trading in Pingtan Marine resumed at 11 a.m. Eastern time on 19 December, after being halted on 9 December following the announcement of sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which effectively bar the company from doing
… Read More
A Chinese government spokesperson has assailed U.S. sanctions against two Chinese distant-water fishing firms as evidence of “double standards.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning, responding on 9 December to a question from TASS, the Russian news service, rejected allegations of human rights abuses onboard Chinese fishing vessels and China said punitive actions taken by the U.S. against Pingtan Marine and Dalian Ocean
… Read More
There has been a big increase in the distant-water catch landed in China’s top fishing port in the first 11 months of 2022.
Home to some of China’s largest squid and tuna processors, Zhoushan, in Zhejiang province south of Shanghai, reported a 22 percent increase in landed volumes through the first 11 months of 2022, reaching 608,000 metric tons.
The state-owned fishing firm CNFC Overseas Fishing is a major presence in
… Read More
The streets of Beijing have been nearly empty over the past week amid a surge in Covid cases following China’s abrupt reversal of its zero-Covid policy.
Following widespread protests across China beginning in late November, the Chinese government moved to ease some pandemic-related restrictions on Wednesday, 7 December. China’s government is no longer requiring mass testing and has backed down from implementing mass
… Read MoreRecent Articles
