A free trade pact with China is making Taiwan an important channel for exporters into southern Chinese ports. Shipments of seafood from Taiwan in the first five months of 2013 were up 580 percent year-over-year to USD 4.4 million (EUR million), according to the municipal commerce department of Xiamen, a city in Fujjian province located just across the strait from Taiwan.
Under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) China in late 2011 cut duties on 557 items imported from Taiwan, including fish. The deal has been good for Taiwanese aquaculture firms whose ramp-up in production of high-grade species like grouper has been focused on rising Chinese demand: firms like Long Diann Marine Bio Technology are allowed to ship live groupers into mainland Chinese ports like Xiamen under the ECFA.
While the jump in Taiwanese exports to Xiamen follows on the agreement of the ECFA between the two sides the jump in shipments in the first five months of this year — which exceeded the total for 2009-2012 — suggests that shipments from nearby Southeast Asia are being routed through Taiwan for shipment to Xiamen, which is a major seafood processing center.
China’s government continues to see Taiwan as a renegade province that must return to mainland rule, but has in recent years switched to a softer approach, embracing the island nation with favorable access to lucrative Chinese markets. Seafood companies from Taiwan have shifted aquaculture and processing operations to the mainland to exploit lower wages in provinces like Fujian and Guangdong.
Meanwhile dwindling local marine supplies (Fujian like other provinces enforces an annual no-fishing period, from 1 June to 1 August) and changing consumer tastes in Xiamen have created space for imports from further afield. Salmon sales have been brisk at a major seafood market on the city’s Xianfu street, a trend vendors put down to softer prices as well as an increase in home consumption. “It used to be that you could only find salmon in hotels and Japanese restaurants, but in the past five years it’s started to show up in even the most ordinary wet markets,” said Wangzi, a vendor at XianFu market.
At CNY 45 (USD, EUR) per 500 grams, salmon fillets sold at Xianfu are cheaper than species more associated with Xiamen restaurant tables.
“Lobster and abalone prices have stalled…in the past year we’ve seen a ten to 15 percent rises in prices on higher end species and that’s half the annual rise we saw in the previous year,” said a city-appointed official who oversees the Xianfu market’s prices to ensure vendors aren’t charging excessively for lower-end, staple species like carp, squid and shrimp — for which government sets price ceilings.
