Chinese consumers have been slow to embrace tuna, so the nation’s massive tuna-fishing fleet has turned abroad to markets like the E.U. to sell its catch, worrying competitors that its takeover of the global market share is showing no signs of slowing down.
The canning industry in the E.U. has been increasingly utilizing Chinese tuna, with the country increasing its market share in the bloc from 9 percent to 24 percent of tuna purchases between 2015 and 2022. During the same period, Ecuador saw its share drop from 32 percent to 26 percent.
China sold tuna loins at USD 4,200 (EUR 3,822) per metric ton (MT) during the time frame, which was USD 1,200 (EUR 1,092) cheaper than the average Ecuadorian shipment, according to Ecuador’s National Fisheries Chamber of Commerce.
China has been successful in using the E.U.’s autonomous tariff quota (ATQ) system, which entails a complete suspension or reduction of duties attached to a volume of fishery products entering the region’s borders, for products like tuna. In the period from 2020 to 2023, China sent an average of 35,000 MT of tuna annually into the E.U. that was tariff-free, according to the E.U. parliament.
The surge of Chinese tuna into the bloc has angered some E.U.-based tuna producers.
“Cheap tuna produced with lower standards than European regulations require, especially regarding labor conditions onboard tuna vessels, has been and still is a real threat to E.U. tuna producers because we cannot compete fairly with subsidized fleets and processing industries of tuna loins in China,” Julio Morón, the director general of Madrid, Spain-based tuna producers representative body OPAGAC, told SeafoodSource. “Further, the E.U. consumer is unable to identify the origin of tuna once it is in the can because the current marking requirements exonerate tuna cans for marking the vessel’s nationality that caught the fish it contains.”
Morón said he also believes the Chinese tuna fleet benefits from subsidies not available to the E.U. fleet.
“Since the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy of the E.U. more than 10 years ago, the E.U. fleet does not get any direct subsidies, and the Chinese fishing and processing industries get subsidies,” he said.
One reason Morón is especially displeased is …
