Seafood especially
fish is a very important product in China. Fish
known as Yu in Chinese, delegates prosperity.
There has been a definite growth rate in the
income of Chinese consumers. Hence their demand
for fish and seafood has increased. Due to the
new limits on fishing, the domestic market has
not been able to reach up to a required level.
Therefore import has become the only solution,
especially with China's entry to the world trade
and tariffs which will definitely fall to less
than 14% by the end of 2005.
Exporters should
carefully follow the trend and the specific
requirements of the Chinese fish and seafood
market. In China consumer preference is live
vis a vis fresh and fresh vis a vis frozen.
Freshwater products have a wide availability
and low prices. One can therefore safely deduce
that the customer inclination is definitely
towards live or fresh China fish. This same
trend tells us that the inclination is towards
fish caught in the wild rather than farmed fish.
A strong feeling among Chinese consumer is that
wild harvested products have a better taste
and are more nutritious.
The traditional
fish and the seafood that the Chinese are inclined
towards are the croaker, squid and the ribbonfish,
all of which fall under the category of China
fish. Restrictions on harvesting have paved
the way for more imports to meet consumer demands.
These favored, traditional fishes are imported
from India and Southeast Asia.
Big cities like
Bejing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have seen a hike
in the income level. This has given a major
boost to the import of seafood products which
include lobster, oyster, cod, salmon, geoducks
and crabs. These mainly come from the high end
markets like Russia, United States, Canada,
NewZealand, Australia, Japan and Europe. Extremely
high end products like a live salmon from Norway
or a beautifully packaged Alaska king crab from
the United States are brought into as gifts
for business clients.
There are many
interesting trends which are worth watching
at the retail level. One is the quick growth
of hyper market in big and small cities throughout
China, which cater to China fish. They cater
to the middle class consumers, who want to save
time and therefore buy processed products, starting
from fillets to fully processed fish balls and
crabsticks to ready to eat meals. The supermarkets
still emphasize on live sales and keep tanks
of freshwater fish like crabs, eels and shellfish.
China's processing sector is also a huge consumer
of fish and seafood imports.
For price
quotes and any further information, feel free
to call us today at:
Siam
Canadian Foods Co., Ltd.
9th Floor, Suite 283/44, Home Place Office Building.
283 Thonglor 13, Sukhumvit 55
Kongton Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110,
THAILAND
Call us at +66-2-185-3311
Fax: +66-2-185-3317
Email us at info@siamcanadian.com
