China has continued to tighten access for imported seafood, particularly from Russia.
Two Russian seafood firms, Murman Seafood Co. and Soyuzryba – both headquartered in Murmansk, near the border with Finland – have had their export licenses suspended for a month after Chinese Customs said it discovered traces of COVID-19 contamination on their product packaging.
Citing coronavirus concerns, Chinese Customs has increased its scrutiny of all imported food, resulting in delays in the time it takes for products to get to market. Russia appears to have come under special scrutiny due to its proximity to China and for the amount of seafood it exports.
Additionally, a spokesperson for the Russian Crab Group told SeafoodSource the land crossing into China remains backed up for Russian importers.
“Like other exporters, we faced a long waiting for customs clearance at Kraskino checkpoint,” a spokesperson for the Russian Crab Group told SeafoodSource.
The spokesperson said the firm has been fortunate, in that it has already largely completed the bulk of its sales to China (TAC implementation is 99 percent as of 28 December), with more than 3,000 tons of live crab – including 2,125 tons of king crab – sold to Chinese customers in 2020.
Imported seafood distribution in northern China in 2020 is running at 60 percent of 2019 levels, according to a seafood distributor interviewed in the state-run Chinese newspaper The Global Times. The news outlet also reported that imports of beef and pork fell 70 percent in November compared to July figures, though that decline may reflect a trend of stockpiling prior to China's annual October holiday.
The Global Times also suggested distributors are switching to domestic alternatives as they run into Customs difficulties with imports and as cold-chain capacity is squeezed as firms providing such services pull back over worries of contaminated packaging on imported seafood.
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