Increased sales to the European Union and developing world are driving expansion at one of China’s leading fishing ports focused on international “long distance” catches.
The home port for some of China’s fishing firms operating in international waters, Quanzhou, located in Fujian Province, has announced its catch in the first three months of 2018 soared 259 percent to 7,785 tons. Meanwhile, exports to the E.U. rose 86 percent to USD 5.07 million (EUR 4.22 million), according to the local branch of the state’s Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine, which advises local firms on export standards.
“We have also sought to diversify our markets,” noted the AQSIQ, pointing to Angola, the Seychelles, and Cook Islands – which are, ironically, also destinations for Chinese trawlers – as new markets for Quanzhou seafood.
The city’s big markets are the Philippines, which bought USD 54.1 million (EUR 45 million), up 86.1 percent year-on-year, and Indonesia, which bought USD 19.9 million (EUR 16.5 million) of Quanzhou seafood in the first quarter of the year, up 18.3 percent year-on-year. Nascent processing industries in Southeast Asian nations like the Philippines and Indonesia – themselves major fishing nations – have struggled to match low prices of Chinese imports.
Quanzhou appears to be focused on cheaper products: for example, shipments of canned produce rose 166 percent to USD 6.7 million (EUR 5.5 million) in the first quarter.
