China’s seafood buyers are taking on larger volumes of seafood but paying lower prices. Imports meanwhile fell back in the first three months of the year as the country’s economy softened.
Prices for seafood are showing weak growth in the first quarter, according to the fisheries bureau at the Department of Agriculture in Beijing, which collects data from wholesale markets nationwide. Wholesale volumes rose 23.5 percent in the first three months but turnover grew only 7.3 percent year-on-year. Prices declined 1.19 percent compared to the same period last year. Almost half of the 49 species monitored showed a price decline while 19 of those species saw declines of more than 10 percent on first-quarter 2014 levels.
The data tallies with evidence from markets in Beijing and Weihai with trader Wang Qishan at the Jingshen market in Beijing blaming weak macroeconomic conditions. A recent warning issued by the Communist Party disciplinary commission has put certain foods off limits to officials for banquets. These include sea cucumber, abalone and tiger grouper, says a trader at Beijing Sunkfa Trading, one of the city’s largest importers of seafood.
“The high-end hotel and restaurant trade is still soft because the government banquet trade hasn’t recovered,” explained the Sunkfa trader, who added that “demand for salmon and halibut fish and some types of shellfish and crab is OK because there are a lot of Japanese style restaurants that serve young middle class people.”
The clamp-down on corruption and a weaker overall economy means China’s seafood importers are having to change their buying habits, moving away from high-margin species such as tropical fish, live lobsters and sea cucumbers.
Judging by data provided to SeafoodSource by the agricultural ministry, the foreign trade picture for seafood looks gloomy for importers. China imported 904,100 metric tons (MT) of seafood in the first quarter, down 19.7 percent year-on-year, while in value terms imports dropped 11.07 percent to USD 1.9 billion (EUR 1.71 billion). Exports at 933,400 MT were up 10.14 percent, rising 6.9 percent in value terms at USD 4.6 billion (EUR 4.14 billion). It should be noted that seafood shipments did well in the first quarter considering China’s overall exports fell 17 percent in the first three months of the year compared to last year.
Weaker economic sentiment is also curbing consumption of luxury foods. China has been slipping into deflation in recent months as growth in prices has stalled. A strong yuan has been blamed for lower export growth while a slide in real estate sales as well as soaring public debt levels have all been blamed for darkening the economic outlook.
High-margin purchases remains slow but there’s still good demand for mid-priced fish species for the fast-food and informal dining market, which is China’s fastest-growing restaurant segment.
“We want to increase our supply of salmon and easy to prepare fish that can be served in western-style and Chinese chain restaurants and we want crabs and lobster,” said a buyer for Guangzhou Aoxin Marine Product Co., a major trading house supplying the country’s south and Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, China produced 11.9 million MT of seafood in the first quarter of 2015, up 3.5 percent on the same period last year, with 9.2 million MT coming from aquaculture (including mariculture) and 2.83 million MT coming from domestic fishing operations. The long-distance fishing fleet contributed the fastest growth, at 530,000 MT, up 11.6 percent on the same period last year, though China has long been suspected of under-estimating the scale of its catch from international waters. Interestingly, China’s offshore catch levels have been hit by a crackdown by Indonesia on illegal fishing in its waters with volumes from Indonesian seas down 34 percent in the first quarter, according to the ministry’s data.
