Chile is capitalizing on the growth of China’s middle class, which is propelling demand for its seafood products, according to a leading Chinese importer.
Speaking at a recent conference of Chile and Chinese agribusiness and fishery executives in Beijing, at which Chilean president Michele Bachelet was in attendance, Weng Sheng, the president and CEO of Shunjing Import Co., said China’s imports of frozen Chilean salmon increased from 709 tons in 2013 to 13,625 tons in 2016, a 13-fold increase.
Beijing-based Shunjing, also known as Sunkfa, claims to be the top importer of seafood into China from Chile, accounting for 19.5 percent of Chilean salmon imports in 2016 and 48.9 percent of king crab imported from Chile last year.
Chinese consumers are increasingly willing to pay for “quality and safe” seafood coming from Chile’s “clean” and “unpolluted” waters, Weng said. He added that his company has found Chile has “abundant resources” of seafood.
Sunkfa is marketing Chilean seafood products to the Chinese middle class, which now numbers more than 204 million people, Weng said. He projected this figure will total 630 million in 2022. The company is selling the seafood to Chinese consumers under three selling points: “delicious,” “fashionable,” and “convenient,” and is seeing great success, to the point that Weng said his firm wants to increase its imports from Chile.
The rise of the middle class in China – and its increasing amount of disposable income – has led to huge increases in its spending in restaurants. The country’s population spent CNY 3.5 trillion (USD 507 billion, EUR 456 billion) dining out in 2016, according to Beijing-based Dianping and Meituan, both providers of food-ordering and delivery services. (The companies didn’t offer year-on-year comparisons.)
