Even as it slaps tariffs on U.S. imports, including many seafood products, China is giving a break to seafood imports from five Asian by cutting tariffs from 12 to nine percent on a range of seafood imports.
China’s finance ministry has announced the cuts – to be applied starting 1 July – on a range of mostly fresh seafood species from Bangladesh, India, Laos, South Korea, and Sri Lanka. Those five countries are all parties in the little known Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) trade deal originally signed in 1975.
The relief will apply largely to chilled and fresh trout, tilapia, tuna, eel, sardine, shrimp, carp, cod, turbot as well as croaker, saury, and mackerel from the APTA member states. There is growing demand for many of these products in China’s domestic market.
The relief is not being given on most processed and frozen products, a clear sign that China wants to increase its supply options without hurting its processing sector.
