More than a dozen Japanese pelagic fishing vessels have been stuck at overseas ports because COVID-19 lockdowns have prevented bringing in crew.
Two ships belonging to the Yaizu Fisheries Cooperative have been held up in Cape Town, South Africa, according to a recent Shizuoka News report. On one ship, the crew of 24 has been unable to disembark for more than two months. The vessel lacks a chief engineer after the previous one flew home ill and the replacement could not enter the country.
Another vessel entered Cape Town for repairs and the crew was sent home temporarily, the newspaper stated. But with repairs complete and southern bluefin tuna fishing at its peak in the area, the crew cannot re-enter the country and the vessel sits unused.
With the decline of the restaurant industry due to people refraining from eating out over fears of COVID-19, tuna prices are falling, Shizuoka News added. The absence of foreign tourists has also hurt the market for high-end seafood. The value of landings at Yaizu port in the year through 8 June was off by 10 percent from the same period last year, the newspaper found. What’s more, cold storage facilities are full as landings are being stockpiled rather than being sent to market.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported that at Tokyo’s Toyosu market, the volume handled of southern bluefin on Friday, 26 June, was 2,833 kilograms for fresh and 10,502 kilograms for frozen. This is down compared to Friday, 28 June, 2019, when air-flown product was predominant. At that time, fresh bluefin amounted to 12,088 kilograms and frozen amounted to 8,868 kilograms. The cancellation of commercial passenger flights is the main reason for the shift of transport mode, while stockpiling may account for the overall reduced volume.
Japan never had a hard lockdown in response to the pandemic, but it did request that bars and restaurants limit hours and reduce customer capacity. These restrictions have been lifted, but customers have thus far been slow to return to their pre-coronavirus routines. There has been a slight rebound in the last week, with Tokyo now seeing about 50 new COVID-19 cases per day, and Osaka recording cases in the single digits daily. Due to this, a resumption of restaurant restrictions in Tokyo is possible – most of the cases in Tokyo are from bars and karaoke clubs, according to recent reports.
Incoming and outgoing air travel is currently restricted with the exception of business travel directly to and from Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Vietnam. Businesspeople from these countries will be allowed into Japan if they test negative and save their GPS data on a smartphone app to aid contact tracing. They are also banned from using public transit, officials mandates have stated.
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