BULLETIN

20th March 2020

Air freight....  Time to unite!

Dear STAG participants,

While there are many market impacts from COVID19 creating difficulty through the seafood industry we are starting to see demand and consumption in China and Hong Kong starting to recover, albeit in a limited way. Orders are starting to flow (see our market news below) which is a positive sign for both Australian industry and Chinese importers. 

However, at the same time that orders have started to flow, access to freight capacity is becoming increasingly harder if not impossible.  In order to service these orders and to keep our fishing fleets in operation, we will need support for continuation of freight services.

The STAG has been working with freight forwarders to identify a way that this could happen.  Since Monday we have been working with Seafood Industry Australia (SIA) and the Government communicating the need for freight capacity amid the ongoing risk of flight cancellations from Australia. STAG and the partnership group (FRDC, ACA, AAA, SRL ARLEA, WRL, and AAGA) have also been engaging with major exporters daily.

The proposal is to get a dedicated, once weekly, freight service to China with guaranteed capacity for seafood and other commodities.  The flight would operate on a commercial basis and space would be sold via the freight forwarders network working with the flight operator, potentially Qantas. 

What is needed is for the Government to underwrite the financial risk.  As the freight space will be sold via normal channels, and there is already significant interest from seafood and other commodity exporters, it is hoped that the arrangement would be self-sufficient financially once it has got off the ground (pun intended). 

The initiative would not only benefit the seafood industry but extend into the entire supply chain and to other sectors.  So, with FRDC support, the STAG is discussing how it may work across commodities with Meat/Horticulture/Wine and Dairy.

Jane Lovell (SIA) has done a great job in rattling cages in Canberra and keeping our seafood industry on the agenda.  This is a commercially based solution. It will help keep people in a job and keep much-needed income flowing in these difficult times.

To make it a reality we need to work together to communicate the benefits of the initiative to our politicians – State and Federal.

A STAG partner's phone hook-up is planned for Monday 23rd of March at 1pm WST and 4pm AEDT.  The aim is to agree to a set of key messages around where/how the Government can support and to agree on a lobbying plan to get it happening. We will be working over the weekend and hope we can bring you good news on Monday.

If you would like to join us on the phone hook-up or let us know that you would be interested in participating in the initiative please contact the STAG at admin@seafoodtradeadvisory.com

Nathan Maxwell

STAG Chair

China market update

The below articles contain an informal translation of foreign and Asian media.  Any information provided as part of this trade news service is general in nature. Before acting on any information provided, you should consider its appropriateness to your circumstances and business objectives.

Hema Shanghai launches "Re-New Years" campaign in a bid to promote food often eaten at Chinese New Year

Source:  Fashion.ce.cn, 18th March 2020

FreshHema, the fresh food supermarket with a thorough supply chain, storage, dining in and delivery service (a subsidiary of Alibaba) will launch a "Re-New Year's" promotion initiative in Shanghai.

From the 20th to the 22nd March, Hema Shanghai will target mid-to-high-end foods that residents often eat in the new year, in an attempt to make large-scale profits to compensate lost sales.

A 15% discount on a large number of goods such as lobsters, king crab, steak, high-end fruit, and semi-finished dishes will be offered as well as a large number of coupons issued. In order to ensure a complete experience, some Hema stores in Shanghai will also decorate the stores with a New Year theme.

To enter the stores, citizens will still need to have their temperatures checked and be cleared before they enter the store. Where necessary, the stores will take measures to limit the flow of people.

Daily life and consumption in Yunnan Province is showing signs of recovery

Source:  Fashion.ce.cn, 18th March 2020

Hema's sales data are reflecting that China's citizens daily life and consumption patterns are recovering:

"These few changes are obvious to us these days!" Hema staff said, "The first is the decline in sales of frozen foods. Before, many citizens bought some frozen dumplings, dumplings, and meat at once. Sales of fresh vegetables, meat and poultry eggs, as well as the 'daily fresh milk', which we only sell for one day, have increased significantly; the second is imported large seafood, breaded crabs, Boston lobster, etc., Wuding local chickens used for spring supplements, sea bass, and shellfish are also on the rise. "

Staff members also said that the sales from Hema Kunming 1903 and the "Cabbage Flower Shop" of Ruiding City Store are also increasing, indicating that everyone's pursuit to return to their previous quality of life is slowly returning.

In the past, the three Kunming Hema stores had relatively stable passenger flow from Mondays to Sundays, but the foot traffic lately on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays was stronger than that on weekdays.

67 tonnes of Canadian lobster arrives into Hunan Changsha Airport 

Source: dushi.singtao.ca, 11th March 2020

It has been reported that 67 tonnes of lobster from Canada arrived in Hunan Changsha Airport recently, the first international import after Wuhan lockdown and Spring Festival.

As seafood products have higher requirements for timeliness, storage, and transportation environments, Changsha Huanghua Airport Customs actively connected with relevant seafood importing companies so they could understand import plans in advance, providing 24-hour appointment inspection services, and comprehensively using facilitation measures such as "two-step declaration" to further improve inspection efficiency.

During the COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control, the consignee and consignor can be exempted from the transaction when customs inspects the goods to reduce the gathering of personnel and further improve the efficiency of customs inspection.

Live lobster from Vietnam exported

Source:  gx.xinhuanet, 27th February 2020

Guangxi resumed border trade and land processing in late February and in just one day, Dongxing Hu City Trade Zone accumulatively imported and exported 7.11 tonnes of live lobster with a value of about 2.274 million yuan.

STAG Bulletins are available at http://www.seafoodtradeadvisory.com

STAG Bulletins are a resource for Australian seafood exporters.The Seafood Trade Advisory Group receives funds from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.  The Fisheries Research and Development Corporation plans, invests in and manages fisheries research and development throughout Australia. It is a statutory authority within the portfolio of the federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, jointly funded by the Australian Government and the fishing industry.