China’s imports from Peru –its top supplier of fishmeal – rose by 4.58 percent in volume terms to 677,000 tons in 2015. In value terms, purchases from Peru jumped by almost 12 percent, totaling USD1.7 billion (1.5 billion).
The 2015 figures make Peru the third-most important supplier of seafood to China, right behind the U.S. But interestingly, China saw a much sharper rise in payments to Peru in 2015 than in the previous year, as the value of its imports from Peru rose by nearly 12 percent in 2015, having climbed only 2.6 percent in 2014.
Fishmeal is an important product for China’s fish farms, which use it as feed. But its popularity is not confined to the seafood sector. Fishmeal is also fed to young pigs and China’s highly cyclical pig prices have been on the rebound since the middle of 2015, prompting even greater demand for fishmeal among China’s agricultural sector.
