Beijing, Feb. 27 (TNS): Seafood from Pakistan is gaining in popularity in China, not only because of its low prices, but also because of support from government policies.
A report from the UK-based undercurrentnews.com in December 2016 said that China had overtaken the EU and Japan at that point to become the largest seafood export market for Pakistan. The Embassy of Pakistan in China didn’t respond to an interview request from the Global Times as of press time.
“Currently, domestic demand exceeds supply in terms of Pakistani seafood imports,” Chen Hai’ou, president of Kashgar Mufeng and Hezhengyuan Biotechnology Co, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Several seafood distributors the Global Times talked to said that Indian Ocean seafood, compared with seafood imported from other sources, is more cost-effective.
India also exports seafood like ribbon fish, croaker, cuttlefish and white shrimp to China.
“I would say that compared with other countries, India’s seafood export volume to China has been at a relatively high level in recent years, largely as a result of cheap transportation,” Guo said, adding that Pakistan’s seafood export volume is smaller than that of India due to its smaller fishing area and aquaculture scale.
In recent years, the Chinese government has rolled out measures that have encouraged and facilitated imports of seafood from India and Pakistan.
One example is the establishment of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of the Belt and Road initiative, which has enriched the transportation channels for Pakistani seafood to enter China.
According to Chen, in the past Pakistani seafood could enter China only via sea or air transport. But after the corridor was set up, his company started importing Pakistani seafood by land transportation via Pakistan’s Gwadar Port as well as via Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
“Pakistani seafood needs to travel only for three days via land transportation to China, compared with 40 days by sea, so the cash conversion cycle can be much shorter,” Chen said, adding that the seafood will be sold in northwestern and southwestern regions in China.
Chen also said that with the large demand for seafood in those regions, as well as the lower transportation costs, more companies will engage in seafood trade with Pakistan. “The business has a promising future,” he said.
Apart from transportation, the government has also lowered import tariffs on many types of seafood such as frozen crabs and shrimps, starting from December 2017.
