Customs data show that China’s seafood imports grew 22.7 percent in the first seven months of the year, reaching 3.48 million tons worth USD 10.2 billion (EUR 9.3 billion), up 27.7 percent year-over-year.
Exports rose 1.9 percent to 2.39 million tons, while declining 5 percent in value to USD 11.7 billion (EUR 10.7 billion). Shipments to the United States fell 17.4 percent in volume and 24 percent in value terms over the same period last year.
Shipments from India, Ecuador, and Peru rose by 296 percent, 193 percent and 37.8 percent, respectively, in volume terms – a shift which is driven in part by China’s clampdown on grey-trade smuggling of third-country shrimp across the border from Vietnam.
The data provides increased evidence that Chinese consumers have been switching to seafood as an alternative to pork, given the ongoing African swine flu epidemic which has ravaged local pig herds and forced pork prices upwards.
Wholesale prices at 80 wholesale seafood markets surveyed by the agriculture ministry averaged CNY 20.86 (USD 2.90, EUR 2.67) in August, up 5.4 percent year on year. Daily volume of salt-water seafood traded at 4,666 tons rose 13.1 percent year-on-year, while sea-water transactions, at CNY 53.50 (USD 7.43, EUR 6.84), rose 3.8 percent year-on-year. Freshwater product, at CNY 14.30 (USD 1.99, EUR 1.83), was down 4 percent, but daily volume traded rose 20 percent to 3,847 tons year-on-year.
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