There are hints in China’s latest trade data that the country’s aquaculture output is increasingly staying home, while increases in its seafood export volume are being driven by exports of product caught by China’s growing distant-water fleets.
Data from China’s Agricultural Ministry and customs authorities show exports from China’s leading seafood exporting region, Fujian, dropped 7.8 percent year-on-year in volume terms to 237,000 metric tons (MT) in the first quarter of the year, but rose 15.2 percent in value terms to USD 1.56 billion (EUR 1.33 billion). While the province is home to a significant fresh and seawater aquaculture industry, Fuzhou and Quanzhou, both in Fujian, are home ports to some of China’s largest international fleets and processing hubs.
Zhejiang Province, the other main center of China’s long-distance fleets, posted similarly upbeat figures for seafood exports in the first quarter of 2018. The total volume of its catch, at 113,500 MT, was down 2.7 percent overall, but the value of its catch rose 13.5 percent to USD 440 million (EUR 376.2 million) year-on-year. Zhejiang’s port city of Zhoushan is one of China’s key wild-catch landing and processing hubs.
By contrast, there’s been a collapse in exports from the two tropical provinces of Guangxi and Hainan, which had started to emerge as producers of shrimp and tilapia. It appears that production is now staying home; exports from Guangxi fell by 20.8 percent in volume and 39.4 percent in value in the first three months of 2018 compared to the same period last year. There was a drop of 15.2 percent in volume and a 25 percent drop in value terms in exports from Hainan – long promoted as a base for export-oriented tilapia production – in the first quarter.
The other big drop-off in China’s seafood exports on a provincial basis has been in Jilin Province, which borders North Korea and Russia, with close proximity to the port of Vladivostok. It saw exports fall 51 percent in volume and 35 percent in value terms in the first quarter of 2018, suggesting the previously significant exports in processed Chinese seafood into or through Russia is being reversed or rerouted – or substituted by Russian firms.
