July 19, 2007

Aquaculture export volume from China's Guangdong falls 30 percent on-year in H1 2007

According to the Gongbei Customs Office of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, the province exported 70,000 tonnes of aquaculture products valued at US$130 million in the first half of 2007, down 29.8 percent and 38.1 percent on-year respectively. Exports to the US totalled 5,976 tonnes, valued at US$12 million. These were down 76.6 percent and 79.2 percent on-year respectively.

Exports of salted cuttlefish (2,196 tonnes) and frozen tilapia (2,021 tonnes) to the US were down 14.4 percent and 79.2 percent on-year respectively. These two products accounted for 70.6 percent of total export volume to the US during the half year in review.

Frozen shrimp, which used to be one of the more popular Chinese aquaculture products in the US during the previous years, saw its export volume to the US slumping to just 5 tonnes from 546 tonnes last year.

In July last year, regulatory authorities in the US and Canada began issuing alerts on food safety of Chinese aquaculture products. This was followed by a spate of actions to ban imports of these products by some US states.

On June 28, US Food and Drug Administration announced that it will ban the imports of five types of Chinese fish products. Following the US ban, EU authorities had also said that tighter import restrictions on Chinese seafood products may be enforced soon.

RMB1=US$0.1322 (Jul 19)