Frozen fillet is American biggest imported tilapia product . Although Chinese market share drops, but most of the product is still from China. In the first four months of 2015, more than 90% American imported frozen tilapia fillet comes from China, about 51, 500 tonnes, which drops to 43, 200 tonnes in the same period of 2016, accounting for only 88.9% of the whole tilapia product imported by America.
The decrease of Chinese market share lies in, on one hand, the relatively low demand in American market, and, on the other hand, the impact imposed by Vietnamese basa fish and competition brought by emerging farming countries, like Malaysia. From January to July of 2011, American import of Vietnamese basa fish increases 19, 200 tonnes while its import of Chinese tilapia drops 7, 300 tonnes. With the restriction of basa fish dumping in last few years, the tilapia market grow rapidly in America and EU. However, as the ban of basa fish dumping is lifted, the international tilapia market will shrink on step further. What’s more, as a kind of aquatic product heavily relying on export and its competitiveness drops more and more, the tilapia will face huge challenges in future development if it continuously fails to expand domestic market.
tilapia marketing
In Chinese domestic market, the tilapia price suffers a continuous drop in first half of 2016. By now the 500g size tilapia price has been hovering around 3.75 yuan/500g for a long time. Affected by the cold wave, the tilapia production decreases in first half of 2016 but its price doesn’t jump as expected, which shows that the market supply surpassing demand. If the processing factories can’t receive enough orders by next month, the low price trend will continue to last.
