NEW BEDFORD – March 14, 2012 — Seafood buyers from China outnumbered those from every other nation in the eighth annual buyers' tour of the New Bedford scallop industry Tuesday.
More than half of the 35 buyers who arrived by bus from the Boston Seafood Expo were Chinese representatives, eager to supply a growing middle class in that booming economy with fish and shellfish they could not afford in the past, according to Colleen Coyne, of Food Export USA New England, who came along for the day-long tour.
Also attending was Flora Zhang, one of two U.S. trade representatives working in China on exporting scallops and other species to the growing China market. She said her office has been open just three years and the prospects are growing fast.
Right behind the Chinese were the Russians, who had at least four representatives.
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