Hong Kong woefully lacking seafood import traceability infrastructure, report finds

"Hong Kong is a major hub for China and potentially a way to obscure volumes of trade, as we see for live seafood."
Live seafood market in Hong Kong
Live seafood market in Hong Kong | Photo courtesy of StrippedPixel.com/Shutterstock
6 Min

Hong Kong needs to radically improve its traceability infrastructure for seafood imports, according to a new report.

Titled “Hong Kong’s Seafood Trade, Port Measures, and Import Controls – Paddling to Keep Up,” the report outlines that Hong Kong is facilitating massive trade in live reef fish by allowing shipments into and out of the city that have little or no traceability information attached.

Corroborating those findings, a 2024 Marine Policy report calculated that as much as half of the reef fish shipped into Hong Kong is undocumented.

“Endangered species like humphead wrasse are in Hong Kong markets but are missing from trade data due to underreporting from fishing vessel declarations and incomprehensive surveys … leading to over 50 percent import data gaps in half the live reef food fish species,” the Marine Policy report said.

Published by the Hong Kong Sustainable Seafood Coalition (HKSSC), the newer report adds that Hong Kong is not collecting data on vessels, flagging, or the catch area and fishing method related to fish sold in the city.

Exacerbating the issue, some marine products even arrive in Hong Kong despite the fact they should be subject to export bans, and no health certifications are required for live or frozen seafood imports in the city.

“Hong Kong has done little to update its laws and regulations in a rapidly changing world,” the report said, adding that some of the Hong Kong laws concerning imports date back to the 1940s...


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