Russia resumed fish and seafood exports to China

After a long period when China refused to import Russian fish and seafood due to the coronavirus, supplies to this country have finally almost recovered to pandemic levels, reports Megafishnet.com.

According to Russia’s trade representative in China Alexey Dahnovsky as cited by the Russian Agrarian Agency, while in the first three months of 2021 the export of fish products to China was almost null, now the lag from the results of the previous year does not exceed 6%. It should be noted, however, that in 2020 there was a decrease in supplies. But since China refused to accept Russian fish towards the end of the year, the drop in exports compared to 2019 was noticeable, but not critical, 7.1 percent namely. Despite the desire of the Chinese authorities to isolate themselves from the possible penetration of coronavirus with food products, business is ready to restore trade ties as soon as possible, because Russian fish imports have recently exceeded 40% of all seafood imports to China.

Meanwhile, according to the Far Eastern Customs Administration, supplies of fish and seafood to the eastern markets amounted to 914.7 thousand metric tons totally worth 2.53 billion dollars. In value, this is more by 3.5 percent year-on-year, and in volume – less by 24.3 percent. Most of these products went to South Korea (65.2%, 596.6 thousand tons), China (22.8%, 208.2 thousand tons) and Japan (4.3%, 39.1 thousand tons). However, experts say that Koreans do not buy the Russian fish for themselves: they are re-exporting it to China.