Mark Godfrey is an Irish journalist covering the agriculture and fisheries sectors in Asia, with a focus on China. Proficient in Mandarin, he has frequently traveled across China's fisheries and aquaculture regions and learned the inner workings of China's corporate world during a nearly three-year stint at the Financial Times' “China Confidential” publication. He has also reported widely across Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. He has educational certificates in agriculture and food science, as well as Mandarin.
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China has retained cuts made in 2023 to tariffs on imported seafood products as it seeks to diversify and deepen its food sources.
China’s government announced provisional rates introduced in 2023 on several seafood categories will remain in place through 2024, including a 7 percent tariff on imported Atlantic salmon and a drop from 7 percent to 2 percent on frozen cod and pollock.
A more affluent, urban population is driving up
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Imported seafood could be in for a bumper Chinese New Year thanks to a huge marketing campaign from online retailer Pinduoduo.
The Shanghai-based company told media at a launch ceremony it is spending CNY 3 billion (USD 420 million, EUR 390 million) on advertising and discounts, including on seafood products that are typically favored gifts during the Chinese New Year festival, which falls on 10 February this year.
Argentine red shrimp,
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Two Hong Kong-listed seafood firms have blamed China’s ongoing economic woes and the country’s ban on Japanese seafood imports – both issues of which have unclear resolutions as 2024 begins – for tighter margins and losses that have forced them to adapt quickly.
Revenue at import investment business Ocean One, which sources seafood for Hong Kong and mainland Chinese customers, dropped 3.1 percent to HKD 240.6 million (USD
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Ireland’s seafood exports dropped significantly in 2023, with the reopening of live brown crab exports to China a rare bright spot.
The country’s overall seafood exports fell 14 percent year over year to EUR 550 million (USD 599.5 million), according to Karen Devereux, head of the seafood desk at Bord Bia – Ireland’s state agency tasked with promoting food exports.
The numbers represent the continuation of a trend from
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A Norwegian cod-farming firm has signed a cooperative agreement with a Chinese importer and distributor, continuing a line of recent efforts from the European country to heavily advertise and sell its fish to the world’s largest seafood-consuming market.
Trondheim, Norway-based Norcod signed the agreement with Hecheng Food, which also goes by the English name Hi Chain, at an event in Shanghai in mid-December 2023. The partnership entails
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Iceland is in “advanced consultation” with European Union officials on a deal allowing access to Irish waters to catch EUR 22.5 million (USD 24.6 million) worth of whiting stocks, according to Irish Fish Processors Organization (IFPO) CEO Aodh O Donnell.
O Donnell criticized the negotiations, saying the deal will have “no reciprocal benefit for Ireland.”
A spokesperson for Iceland’s Ministry of Food, Agriculture,
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The Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC) has begun to market the country’s mackerel products in China, including through partnerships with Chinese social media influencers, despite ongoing concerns over the stock’s sustainability throughout Europe.
The council recently partnered with Chinese chef Ren Yun Li, whose main account on the app Weibo has 3.2 million followers, and hosted her as a featured attendee at the China International
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A health-focused international venture capital firm is one of three new investors in Chinese krill-processing firm Function (Qingdao) Marine Technology.
As a health-focused firm describing itself as “a global venture capital platform investing in startups positively impacting the world through technology,” Cathay Innovations is part of the Cathay Capital group with offices in China, Europe, and the U.S.
Another investor in
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The share price of Jiumaojiu International Holdings, the operator of one of China’s most successful seafood restaurant chains, recently plunged following the revelation of habitual corporate governance issues at the firm.
Guangzhou-based Jiumaojiu, which operates the Tai Er chain of restaurants that is well-known in the country for serving fish with sauerkraut, has seen its share price tumble over 80 percent from early 2022, falling to a
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