Mark Godfrey is an Irish journalist covering the agriculture and fisheries sectors in Asia, with a focus on China. Proficient in Mandarin, he has frequently traveled across China's fisheries and aquaculture regions and learned the inner workings of China's corporate world during a nearly three-year stint at the Financial Times' “China Confidential” publication. He has also reported widely across Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. He has educational certificates in agriculture and food science, as well as Mandarin.
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The Atlantic shoreline of Clew Bay in County Mayo, Ireland, looks both pristine and wild in the giant photo billboards at the Xanadu Hotel in Guangzhou, one of China’s wealthiest cities. At a recent Irish seafood marketing event at the hotel hosted by Irish product-marketing agency Bord Bia, and broadcast on the Chinese Weibo social media platform, the images displayed alongside captions describing a “Green Isle” of pure waters
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The end of Covid restrictions across China have spurred a recovery in consumption of smuggled seafood in Hong Kong.
Demand for exotic and endangered fish species collapsed in Hong Kong during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but has returned following the abrupt move by the Chinese government in December 2022 to end its restrictive travel and trading policies designed to curb the spread of the virus.
Yvonne Sadovy de Mitcheson, a professor
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The Chinese government has introduced an economic plan designed to wean the country off a reliance on exports and to increase domestic food production and consumption in the coming decade.
Published 15 December, 2022, the document, titled “Strategic Planning Outline for Expansion of Domestic Demand (2022-2035),” sets a goal of boosting domestic consumption to 50 percent of China’s GDP, repositioning the country away from a
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The Global Seafood Alliance issued new Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certifications to 29 Chinese facilities in 2022.
Those certifications included nine processing plants, two new feed mills, and a hatchery in China, GSA China Market Development Director Xin Wang said. She said her organization is confident there will be continued strong demand for eco-label certification for operators targeting the domestic Chinese seafood market in
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A new research paper diving into China’s seafood production over the past 10 years has found static production volumes, with distant-water catches replacing aquaculture volumes.
The study, performed by Chinese agri-focused market research consultancy Neng Xiao Feng (also trading as BeeData), suggests a contraction in local aquaculture output, albeit from historical highs, alongside a surge in distant-water catches.
China’s total
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Shanghai, China-based distant-water fishing company Kaichuang Marine International has sold off one of its trawlers, citing the increased costs of operating in waters off Russia.
A subsidiary of state-owned Kaichuang sold the vessel, named the Kai Li, for CNY 72 million (USD 10.4 million, EUR 9.9 million) to Shandong Lanyue Ocean Fishery, another Chinese distant-water player based in Rongcheng, a key port for Chinese vessels operating
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A renewed emphasis on domestic food security introduced recently by China’s government could result in a shift in how the country’s aquaculture sector operates.
At the Central Rural Work Conference in Beijing, China, in mid-December, China President Xi Jinping reissued a call for the country to become more self-reliant through increased grain production and improving farming practices through the adoption of agricultural best
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JD.com is cutting some executive salaries by up to 20 percent and is creating a CNY 1.4 billion (USD 200 million, EUR 189 million) employee benefits fund in an effort to align itself with China President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” campaign to reduce inequality.
The move is significant in light of recent regulatory moves by Beijing against key Chinese Internet economy companies, in part to establish state
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Wealth is concentrating at an accelerating level in China, even as growth of the country’s economy slows.
On Tuesday, 19 December, the World Bank cut its growth outlook for China for 2022 and 2023, citing the impact of "the abrupt loosening of strict COVID-19 containment measures and persistent property sector weakness," according to Reuters. The World Bank forecast China's growth at 2.7 percent for 2022, down from its previous prediction
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Reykjavik, Iceland-based processing-equipment maker Marel has scored another sale in China, where consumer demand for salmon continues to grow.
He Yu Frozen Foods Co., also known as Shanghai Hollywin Frozen Food Co., has purchased two new SC 250MA model salmon-cutting machines, according to Marel.
He Yu, which describes itself as a European company, supplies high-end retailers and restaurant chains in China, including ...
Photo courtesy of
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