October 31, 2018 — Mark Begich, Alaska’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, made a cameo at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s All Hands on Deck meeting in Anchorage this week.
“If you want to be successful, you’ve got to put money behind it and market the product,” Begich said in support of the ASMI mission during opening remarks on Monday, Oct. 29.
Despite the too-close-to-call governor’s race, tariffs are the leading topic at the meeting this week.
Alaska’s seafood industry enjoyed a record export total in 2017 of more than 1 billion pounds of seafood with expectations that the trend would continue. However, the complex matrix of Alaska seafood’s global markets and international processing was further complicated by the implementation of several new layers of export and import tariffs on varying products.
Alaska’s proximity to China has long allowed a significant portion of the head and gut fleets’ harvest to be exported to China for final processing and reimportation to the domestic market.
Read the full story at National Fisherman