Maruha Nichiro president, Shigeru Ito. (Photo: Maruha Nichiro)
China leads worldwide seafood demand, states Japanese entrepreneur
JAPAN
Saturday, August 27, 2016, 02:20 (GMT + 9)
Despite China's slowing economy, the world's most populous country has an insatiable appetite for fishery products, according to Japanese seafood company Maruha Nichiro president, Shigeru Ito.
The Japanese entrepreneur based his view on the fact that nearly 90 per cent of Cuban lobsters are being bought up by the Chinese and that neither Japan nor Europe can keep up with China's buying power, which has also increased saury consumption, Nikkei reported.
In an interview to Ito for the above mentioned newspaper, Ito also stated that global demand is brisk, particularly in the US, China and Southeast Asia.
As part of this change in demand, the executive clarified that in Europe, Alaska pollock and shrimp consumption has been declining since the second half of last year and that shipments of Vietnamese basa fish, which Germany imports, have slowed as well.
Nigeria and other resource-rich countries, which became buyers of fishery products from overseas, are losing steam, too.
On being asked if he thought that the strong yen had helped improve Japan's buying power, Ito explained that the US and other countries buy Patagonian toothfish, which is caught in the Antarctic Ocean, for nearly USD 40 per kilogram but the Japanese can only pay around USD 25, and the fish cannot be sold at stores for more than USD 30.
He concluded that a modest strengthening of the yen is not enough to fill the gap between the buying power of Japan and that of other countries.
His statistical data reveals that Japan's total marine product imports are now less than 2.5 million tons, after peaking at 3.8 million tons in 2001.
To explain this drop in Japan's buying power, Ito cited that the Japanese are not eating as much fish as they used to due to an aging population with fewer children and an increase in single-person households.
“With falling incomes since the collapse of the bubble economy, the Japanese have not been able to keep up with the global trend of buying fishery products at high prices,” the entrepreneur concluded.
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