Focus On: CHINAff

By Atuna

China has 4.700.000 kilometers of water area and it began to develop its oceanic tuna fisheries in the middle of the 1980’s. Commercial tuna fishing operations in the Pacific Ocean started in 1988 with longline and purse seine fisheries. In the Indian Ocean, Chinese tuna fishing was first developed in 1995.

More than 3.000 species of marine life are found along the Chinese coast, of which over 100 species are targeted in China. In 2004, the main harvested products were divided into six groups: finfish (9.88 million tons); crustaceans (2.4 million tons); cephalopods (1.14 million tons); shellfish (850 000 tons); seaweed (376 000 tons); and others (205 000 tons, including jellyfish).

According to the Fisheries Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the country has today the largest number of fishing vessels and fishers in the world.  Tuna is one of the main target stocks in the area outside Chinese national jurisdiction.

The major species caught by Chinese tuna vessels are yellowfin and bigeye. In 2007, the Asian country’s catches accounted 89.234 M/T of tuna in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans.

Among the coastal provinces, Zhejiang province (3.22 million tons) was most important in marine capture fisheries landings, representing nearly 22% of the total marine capture fisheries catch in 2004, followed by Shandong (2.7 million tons; 19%) and Fujian (2.23 million tons; 15%). 

China tuna exports to the European Union (EU) are usually very low if compared to other countries: 2.842 M/T in 2007; Spain and Italy being the main destinations.

The export of tuna products to the US increased by 45% between 2006 and 2007; however, the numbers of 2008 (from January to August) are 28% lower, with 1.322 M/T, if compared to the same period last year, in which China exported 1.839 M/T of tuna to America.

Also Thailand is an important export market for the Chinese. Until September of this year, China has already exported just as much tuna to Thailand as it shipped in all of 2007. The numbers of 2008 are 41.134 M/T, 87% of it being frozen tuna. The total tuna exports from China to Thailand were 41.425 M/T last year.

The FAO believes that the extensive and spoliate fishing methods over a long period has resulted in increasing decline of traditional high quality fishery resources, catches now comprising a lot of small-sized fish, which have a lower efficiency and less economic benefit.

The Government of China started, in 2002, a program of reducing vessel numbers and relocating fishermen away from marine capture fisheries. By the end of 2004, the government had invested nearly US$ 100 million, scrapped nearly 8.000 vessels and relocated over 40.000 fishermen.

Chinese future increase of tuna consumption can be a problematic factor, considering the current supply of raw material is not sufficient to address today’s world demand.

China has 1.3 billion inhabitants and a growing middle class of 150 million people. Since 2003, seafood imports have increased in the country reaching a little over 4.130.000 M/T in 2006.

Even though Chinese tuna imports are not significant yet (2.771 M/T in 2005) many believe the country will become a major tuna market. In his presentation for the World Tuna Conference held in Bangkok last May, the president of Sea Fare Group, Mr. Peter Redmayne, stated that it’s only a matter of time for China to impact on seafood trends. Mr. Redmayne believes that the Asian country will keep increasing tuna imports to meet growing demand and the only question is how fast.

One of the pioneers of the tuna business in the Chinese market is Philippine tuna brand: Century Tuna. The Manila based company started its activities in the country 15 years ago, when they realized that canned tuna was not present with over 1.3 billion prospects at the time.

Century Tuna first targeted a number of selected cities and had successfully penetrated into China’s leading retail channels within the first few years. That move, along with consistent product value and market maintenance has established Century Tuna’s position in Chinese market.

According to the company’s product manager, Angela Gamboa, it was not easy to insert tuna consumption in the Chinese society: “The challenge at the beginning was lack of product recognition not only from consumers, but also from distributors and retailers. Awareness for tuna as a product and the many ways to consume it was not available. It just did not go well with most of Chinese traditional recipes”.

However, she ponders the first difficulties with the current situation: “When demand for balanced nutrition and more convenient food were growing in China, the tuna category started to draw more and more attention from the public. Gradually, popularized western recipes, sandwich, salad, pizza, for instance, had also boosted the preference and usage of canned tuna recently”.