Vietnamese seafood may have gained a direct route into China’s largest metropolis, in a move that would significantly reduce the grey trade and smuggling over the border.
A delegation of Vietnamese seafood executives is visiting Chongqing this week to meet with city officials and management of the Sanya Wan Wholesale Seafood Market, according to the head of the municipal commercial affairs department.
Bureau head Xiong Lin, addressing a press conference, said the city would seek io increase seafood imports, including lobster and abalone, from Vietnam.
Competition among the largest cities in China for seafood suppliers may become a pattern to watch as various major cities around China set up new markets and special ports to handle seafood. With its 21 million residents, Chongqing is the key metropolis is southwest China and has enjoyed economic growth in recent years stronger than the national average. As China’s consumption and spending power rises, Vietnam –where industrial wages are about half the Chinese rate – has become a supplier of seafood for its larger neighbor to the north, but much of the total figure imported from Vietnam has been made up of transhipments smuggled over the border into China’s Guangxi Province.
