2.) Belt tightening
In 2018, China is expected continue a long-term trend towards widening its export markets.
In the past year, China aggressively pursued its new “One Belt, One Road” policy, otherwise known as its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a national political priority that aims to integrate neighboring regions to China through infrastructure. Fast-growing economies in Southeast Asia – a major target of the BRI – appear to be responding, with record shipments of seafood from China to Indonesia and the Philippines this year. Shipments to the Philippines, at 103,000 tons in the first half of 2017, were up 51.3 percent year-on-year.
China’s ability to score market share in developing nations like the Philippines comes down to the scale and competitiveness of its processing sector and logistics – with which the Philippines cannot compete. Developing nations like Indonesia or the Philippines will be able to add this capacity, given the influx of cheap, processed seafood from China.
Another main purpose of the BRI is to reduce China’s reliance on Western markets. So far, it appears to be working, with sales to the European Union dropping 2.3 percent in volume terms in the first half of 2017, though they were still considerable at 246,000 tons.
