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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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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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