Seafood processing equipment firm Marel said it grew its sales of equipment to processors in China last year.
Marel Marketing Manager Atli Sigurður Kristjánsson said there was “a steady increase” in sales of machines to his firm’s seafood industry clients in China, though he declined to offer additional details on sales levels.
“Fish processors are looking into investing in automation and quality control,” Kristjánsson told SeafoodSource. “If we look globally, most of the fish catches happens within Asia and China, so we do identify opportunities to grow and to create more value from the raw material. More value means utilizing more of the product, creating more value, and decreasing food waste. In addition, it could be sliced, value-added, [or] portioned.”
Chinese processors have been forced by China’s long-term demographic pressures to look to automation. A recent report by investment bank Natixis outlined a sharp fall-off in China’s population, further driving wage growth.
“The next two decades will see a sharp fall in population in China and other Asian economies. By 2040, aging Asia will lose 145 million working-age people, and 78 percent of the decline will happen in China, based on population projections from the United Nations,” Natixis wrote in a presentation of the report's data given to investors in Hong Kong recently.
The report, titled “Youthful Asia,” found other Asian countries – particularly India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia – will collectively add 300 million workers to the global labor force in the next 20 years. China still accounts for 32 percent of global total labor-intensive manufacturing exports, but “the risks of having a China-centric global supply chain makes youthful Asia particularly appealing,” the report found.
Yet Natixis pointed out numerous challenges facing seafood processors attempting to relocate from China. Vietnam has been aggressive in offering incentives and pushing for deregulation to attract foreign direct investment, “but its population growth is close to zero and the quality of its labor is not as good as Malaysia, India, or the Philippines,” Natixis’ report said. India suffers from “poor infrastructure, especially in areas relevant for manufacturing, such as transport and communication,” Natixis said.
Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted for some seafood companies outside China the dilemma of being reliant on China as a processing center. But Natixis also cited as a negative the comparative shortage of clean energy for future development in the more-populous Asian countries cited.
“Youthful Asian countries are among the worst placed in terms of their energy basket in the global transition to green energy,” it said.
Photo courtesy of Marel
