Authorities in one of China’s key ports and processing hubs are vowing a crackdown in hygiene and sanitary inspections after a sharp fall in exports to traditional markets Korea and the U.S. in 2013. Exports from Wenzhou to Korea fell 35 percent on 2012 figures while shipments to the U.S. and Japan slipped 21 percent and 9 percent respectively. Wenzhou processes tuna, fish fillets and whole-round yellow croakers, a favorite fish in the Korean market, but several scandals around the use of chemical dyes and antibiotics may have hurt sales from the city.
Wenzhou, a port city in the southeasterly province of Zhejiang, still managed to lift seafood exports by 17 percent to USD 156 million (EUR), and 31,874 tons —largely thanks to a surge in shipments to Thailand and Russia.
“Recent crackdown campaigns have focused on shoddy materials as well as fake and real shark fins at Wenzhou seafood companies,” according to a statement from Wenzhou’s Ocean & Fisheries Bureau. The bureau promised to “strictly monitor” the presence of antibiotics residues in local seafood output.
Authorities in Wenzhou have been seeking to reassure buyers. Visiting inspection teams from the Korean ministry of fisheries expressed themselves “highly content” with standards at three local seafood processors supplying Korean markets.
The fishery bureau statement also referred to an ongoing investigation of orange dye by local fishery enterprises to give a fresh luster to yellow croaker fish — a key export to Korea. A video posted of orange-dyeing of croakers in Wenzhou was posted on China’s weibo micro-blogging website in late 2013. The Ocean & Fisheries bureau has vowed to use the (state controlled) local media to expose bad practices by local seafood firms.
Meanwhile, Wenzhou authorities seem particularly eager to reassure key markets like Korea, with a further inspection delegation expected from Seoul. Meanwhile, shipments to Thailand rose 37.1 percent year-on-year in 2013, with EU exports rising 15.2 percent according to official data. The Ocean & Fisheries Bureau expressed joy at USD 9.3 million (EUR) worth of seafood exports to Russia, given that Wenzhou’s seafood exports to China’s northerly neighbor were zero in 2012.
