Taiwan tilapia market faces stiff competition from China

 

 

With more and more Taiwan's tilapia farmers relocating their investments to China, the island's tilapia business has seen a steep decline in exports, while China's exports of the fish have jumped.

 

Tilapia growers in Liuchia in southern Taiwan's Tainan County threw a banquet Sunday to promote their product in the domestic market amid falling exports and strong competition from China.

 

According to reports, China's frozen tilapia exports to the US totalled 29,672 tonnes in 2009, while Taiwan's were 13,180 tonnes. China's frozen tilapia fillet sales to the US last year hit 10,691 tonnes, far in excess of Taiwan's 2,333 tonnes.

 

China is now the largest tilapia exporter to the US, according to reports.

 

In an effort to mitigate the effects of weakening exports, local tilapia farmers are giving more attention to the domestic market. However, an increase in local supply has dragged down domestic prices by 29% to 34%.

 

About 90% of Taiwan's tilapia species are being grown in China as the industry is moving more and more of its capital there. In addition, Taiwan investors have taken Taiwan's advanced breeding technologies to China, which is now producing a better quality product than Taiwan.

 

Su Huan-chih, magistrate of Tainan County which is the centre of tilapia breeding in Taiwan, said the government has to come up with concrete measures to enhance Taiwan's global distribution network and also has to establish a certification mechanism to differentiate between the products on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

 

Su said he is worried that Taiwan's tilapia growers will suffer even more once an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China is signed as it will require Taiwan to eventually open its market wider to Chinese products.

 

In the next round of high-level cross-strait negotiations scheduled for the middle of this year, Taiwan will seek to include protective measures in relevant agreements to protect the local agriculture sector from the effects of a wider market opening, according to the Council of Agriculture (COA).

 

Additionally, local agricultural businesses are expected to be required to pay a significant sum for licenses to move their operations to China, the COA said.

 

Furthermore, the COA said, Taiwan will implement strict rules on place-of-origin identification of its fishery products.