China needs to invest more in research to increase the efficiency of its seafood sector, according to a body representing some major aquaculture and processing firms.
Investment needs to go into feed efficiency as well as the use of artificial intelligence and big data to reduce costs and to stave off competition from Southeast Asian competitors, a report published by the Zhoushan Aquatic Products Export Association advises.
“We need to look at other markets,” the report, written by Liu Zi Fei at the influential Chinese Academy of Fisheries, said. It also proposes co-investment and cooperation in fisheries with countries in Africa, ASEAN, the European Union, and Japan.
While it remains China’s top single market, the United States went from accounting for 16 percent of China’s overall exports to 10 percent in 2018, according to the report. China’s exports of shrimp to the U.S. in the first half of 2019 fell 52 percent in volume to 9,466 metric tons (MT), dropping 62 percent in value to USD 53.2 million (EUR 48.3 million). Furthermore, a readjustment of trade is seeing China replace Europe and the U.S. as the key trading partner and supplier to Russia.
Exports from the leading Chinese seafood processing hub of Qingdao to Belt and Road Initiative-designated countries rose 21.8 percent to 2,165 MT in the first six months of 2019. A total of 107 factories are exporting to Russia and 17 other Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, according to the city’s Ocean and Fisheries Bureau. The BRI is China's trade blueprint to expand new markets and to integrate regional markets into China's economy with infrastructure links.
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