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
China’s distant-water fishing industry is reliant on low-wage labor to buttress poor profitability, according to a report from U.K.-based nonprofit Planet Tracker.
“Fishing Thinking: Solving China’s Distant-Water Challenges,” released 30 July, found the impacts of climate change and a World Trade Organization deal to limit subsidies will force the owners of China’s huge commercial fishing fleet to transition to a
… Read MoreA report recently released by London, U.K.-based sustainable finance nonprofit Planet Tracker highlights how deeply China’s distant-water fleet is entrenched in the global tuna industry and whether the Chinese government has the ability, or desire, to effectively regulate its fishing industry.
Titled “Fishful Thinking,” the report points out China’s state-owned companies have cornered the tuna portion of the
… Read MoreChina still has room for growth of seafood imports amid a downbeat economic mood in China, especially in terms of consumption, according to Rabobank Chief Seafood Analyst Gorjan Nikolik.
China’s seafood imports dropped 11.5 percent in the first five months of 2024 amid rising prices and broader economic troubles that have pushed Chinese consumers to eschew premium products.
“We are still under the assumption that China will grow
… Read MoreWeak consumer purchasing power in China, a low availability of large-sized salmon in Norway, and a shift in processing operations to Vietnam have contributed to weakening Norwegian seafood trade to the world’s largest consumer market to start 2024.
Sales of Norwegian salmon into China fell in the first half of 2024, according to the Norwegian Seafood Council’s (NSC) office in China, with salmon shipments were down 14 percent by
… Read MoreThe quashing of a 2021 decision to award a license to Mowi for a salmon farm in Bantry Bay, in the south of Ireland, could have much larger consequences for the country’s aquaculture industry.
In 2021, a decade after it had first applied, Mowi received approval for Ireland’s first new marine salmon-farming permit. But, on 12 July, an Irish High Court judge shot down a decision by the country’s Aquaculture Licenses Appeals Board
… Read MoreChina’s average tariff on seafood is well below the level for most other food imports, according to a review by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The trade policy report was issued 12 June in advance of the WTO’s Trade Policy Review on China at WTO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 19 July.
What the WTO terms the “simple average tariff on fish and fishery products” was 6.8 percent in 2024, with
… Read MoreThe Irish government recently announced a quota of 150 work permits as part of a new work permit scheme for immigrant fishery workers.
The plan is a “significant improvement” on the scheme it replaces, according to Michael O’Brien, head of the Fisheries Section at the Dublin offices of the International Transport Workers’ Federation.
The plan allows Irish fishing companies to hire workers from outside the European Union
… Read MoreProminent Chinese seafood executives are going public with their ambitions to expand their aquaculture and mariculture operations in Southeast Asia.
Speaking on “Dialogue,” a flagship program of the China Central Television (CCTV) 2 channel, Guangdong Evergreen Group CEO Chen Dan said his company is looking into growing its Southeast Asia aquaculture operations. Guangdong Evergreen is a conglomerate which produces and processes fish,
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