Recently, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released the "2024 China Aquatic Products Report", which reveals the production and consumption of China's aquatic products industry in recent years and the future development trend.
Based on this report, this paper will conduct an in-depth analysis of China's aquatic product market.
1. China's aquatic product production continues to grow
According to the report, China's seafood production in 2023 is 71 million tons, an increase of 3.5% from 55.65 million tons in 2022.
Of these, the production of wild-caught seafood was 12.88 million tons, down 1% year-on-year, and the total production growth was mainly driven by aquaculture, which increased by 4.4% year-on-year to 58.12 million tons in 2023.
In 2023, China will remain the world's largest producer of aquaculture. Aquaculture will continue to be China's main means of increasing domestic seafood supply. Consumer demand for high-quality seafood and the shift in consumption patterns towards more processed and prepared seafood are expected to continue to drive the growth of the industry.
Second, the yield of different varieties
Since the official production data for 2023 has not yet been published, the report cites the China Fisheries Statistics Report 2023, which is the annual data for 2022, for analysis.
In 2022, fish production reached 29 million tons, accounting for 52.2% of aquaculture production. Freshwater fish accounted for 27.1 million tons and saltwater fish for 1.92 million tons. Production of crustaceans reached 6.85 million tons, up from 6.4 million tons in 2021. Shellfish production reached 15.9 million tons, up from 15.5 million tons in 2021.
This trend shows that Chinese consumers have increasingly diversified demands for the quality and variety of aquatic products, and the pursuit of high-end aquatic products is also getting higher and higher.
In 2022, China's largest seafood producing provinces are Guangdong, Shandong and Fujian, benefiting from coastal advantages, abundant fresh water resources and well-developed production facilities. Leading freshwater aquaculture producers include Hubei, Guangdong and Jiangsu, with a total output of 12.8 million tons in 2022, accounting for 38.9 percent of the country's total.
3. Import of aquatic products
Seafood imports surged to 4.6 million tons in 2023, valued at $18.8 billion, up 12 percent year on year. Imports of frozen fish and crustaceans increased by 15.5% and 13.6%, respectively, over the previous year.
Russia remains the largest seafood supplier to China, with a total production of 1.27 million tons in 2023, followed by Ecuador with 700,000 tons, India with 350,000 tons, Vietnam with 300,000 tons and the United States with 290,000 tons.
The report predicts that China's import demand for seafood will continue to increase.
4. Export of aquatic products
China mainly exports processed seafood products. Seafood exports in 2023 were 3.52 million tonnes, little changed from the previous year, but down 12.7 per cent in value.
Japan will remain China's largest seafood export destination in 2023, followed by the United States and South Korea.
However, total seafood exports to the United States declined in both volume and value, down 14.4 percent and 21.6 percent respectively from the previous year.
But the United States remains China's largest catfish market, with 11,000 tons of catfish exported to the United States in 2023, accounting for 59 percent of total exports.
In addition, due to the competition of low-priced Vietnamese basa fish in the international market, China's export volume of basa fish products declined, and in 2023, the export volume of tilapia products recovered, mainly frozen tilapia, reaching 136,000 tons, an increase of 33% over the previous year.
According to the report, it can be predicted that China's aquatic product market will continue to maintain a steady growth trend.
On the one hand, with the increasing demand of domestic consumers for the quality and variety of aquatic products, the production and import of aquatic products will continue to grow; On the other hand, with the improvement of environmental awareness and the promotion of sustainable development, the aquaculture industry will pay more attention to ecological balance and environmental protection, and promote the green development of the aquatic product industry.