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The section below contains articles from Chinese news and media that focus on trends in relation to seafood imports and exports.

Note: If foreign articles are opened in Google Chrome, they can be automatically translated

📈 China e-commerce lobster sales ranking 

Online retailer Xiaomai Youxuan ranks its top-selling lobster varieties for the past month.

Although this e-commerce site is busy and confusing, exporters can still gain insights into how lobster is marketed online in China, including pricing, by following this link.
 

🍥 China's processors forced to pass on costs

Seafoodsource.com reports Chinese seafood processors are renegotiating their contracted prices due to rising costs for raw imported materials and freight. Port delays due to increased Covid-19 testing measures and suspensions of major overseas suppliers in India and Ecuador are added complications. Read the full article here.

🐟 2020 ‘Salmon crisis’ in China’s seafood markets 

An interesting article from SeafoodNet regarding the impact on large seafood markets across China after authorities discovered Covid-19 on imported salmon cutting boards at Beijing’s Xinfadi market in June last year. The damage done to the reputation of imported fresh foods is still being felt.

🎪 China Seafood Expo to go ahead

Organisers have confirmed the China Seafood and Fisheries Expo 2021 will be held as scheduled October 27-29 in Qingdao. Overseas visitors and participants in the expo will be required to quarantine for two weeks on arrival in China. See the organiser’s announcement here.

🦀 Stay away from Fat Brother’s ‘overnight crabs’ (Chinese)

Creative Chinese food fraud and seafood scams are a favourite topic here at STAG News Bites, but this one is just gross.

The culprit this time is Fat Brothers and Crab Pot, a national chain of internet celebrity restaurants with more than 400 outlets across China. ‘Overnight crabs’ refers to the practice of passing off yesterday’s dead crabs as today’s fresh specimens:

“Some crabs have turned black because they have been left for too long, but they continue to use them after cleaning them with brushes." Read the full story here, if you can handle it.

The section below contains articles focusing on other global seafood markets, including news and media from relevant markets to Australian seafood exporters. 

🐳 USA tightens rules on lobster fishermen
 

America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced a set of new regulations intended to protect the North Atlantic right whale from entanglement-related incidents. Seafoodsource.com reports the main objective of the rule is to reduce the number of vertical buoy lines in the water through planned seasonal area closures.

Industry representatives are unimpressed by the measures: ‘This is incredulous. Maine lobstermen and women are not killing right whales. Why would you penalize an iconic Maine industry for the sake of being able to say you are saving right whales?’ Read the full story here.

🍥 Vietnam announces strategic seafood processing plan

Vietnam’s government has approved an ambitious new strategy aimed at turning the country into a global seafood processing centre and one of the top five seafood-processing countries in the world by 2030. Value-added products are to make up 40 percent of exported seafood, marking a shift up the value chain from the supply of bulk commodity products.

The plan involves alignment of Vietnam’s raw seafood production capacity with processing and consumer demand, lifting traceability compliance, restructuring the supply chain, and attracting investment to the processing sector. Read more here.

🌍 Lithuania joins Australia in the China trade sin bin

Agrifood exporters from EU-member nation Lithuania are facing trade pressure from Beijing. After Lithuania’s government reached an agreement with Taiwan to open a representative office in the capital Vilnius, mainland Chinese officials declared they would ‘take serious measures’ in response.

The gripe centres around use of the term ‘Taiwan’ in reference to the office, rather than the more acceptable (to Beijing) ‘Taipei’. What happened next might sound familiar to STAG readers. According to the head of Lithuania’s State Food and Veterinary Service:

“a month ago, the Chinese contacted us and gave a list of certain non-compliances, and one of our beer exporters was taken off the list [of companies] allowed to supply products to China,"

 Lithuania's talks with China on export permits for feed, non-animal products and edible offal had been growing increasingly difficult since the start of the year and have finally come to a complete stop, according to the official.

 "[China's authorities] have stopped the certification process. Questionnaires are not being filled in because of a lack of audits on their side and everything has stopped," he said. "We have not received any indication from their side that the approval of products might stop. They are just not doing it. I can't comment on why." Read the full article here.
 

🗾 Japan Government to buy seafood if Fukushima water release hits sales

The Japanese government said Tuesday it will buy marine products as an emergency step to support fishermen if the planned discharge of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea causes damage to their sales. Read more on the Kyodo website.

🎌 Japan's food self-sufficiency rate at a record low in FY 2020

Japan's Agriculture Ministry reported the country’s food self-sufficiency rate in the fiscal year 2020 was 37 percent, matching the record low logged in fiscal 1993 and 2018.

The decline is mainly due to a drop in wheat production from a year earlier as well as a fall in the consumption of rice, much of which is produced domestically. Read more on the NHK website.

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