Saving Seafood

Alaska seafood leaders talk tariffs, competition from Russia and Canada

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

 

Key Alaska seafood products dropped from list of Chinese tariffs

October 9, 2018 — Some of Alaska’s seafood industry has escaped the Trump administration’s trade war with China for now. The industry is happy the administration dropped some mainstay seafood products from a list of tariffs it imposed last week.

The Trump administration levied billions of dollars worth of tariffs on the world’s second largest economy on Sept. 24. The tariffs start at 10 percent and will ratchet up to 25 percent by 2019. The Trump administration’s original list of levies included seafood products that Alaska processors export to China for reprocessing.

“A portion of that actually comes back to the U.S.,” Garrett Everidge, a fisheries economist at the McDowell Group, said. “These would be products such as salmon products, Pacific cod products and other seafood products that the state produces.”

But Pacific cod and salmon have been dropped from the list.

“As of right now, those categories have been excluded from the import tariffs. Pollock products have also been excluded,” Everidge explained.

That’s good news. Even when those tariffs were just a proposal, they were slowing down Alaska processors’ sales in China, the main buyer of Alaska seafood.

That’s because Chinese fish buyers were taking a wait-and-see approach as the Trump administration worked to finalize its list of tariffs. 

“Compared to a few months ago when there was a bit more uncertainty and just less information, we now have a better understanding of those products that are actually going to be on the list,” Everidge added. “That represents an improvement for both the buyers and sellers.”

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute Executive Director Alexa Tonkovich agrees the final list is an improvement.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Seafood marketing group says fish meal included in tariff changes, calls for comments

August 27, 2018 — Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute recently received clarification about tariff changes, which went into effect on July 6, for Alaska seafood products going into the Chinese domestic market, an organization spokesperson said.

The public-private marketing organization promotes Alaska’s seafood industry.

“We previously thought that fish meal would not be included and we now know that fish meal products will be included in those proposed tariff increases from China,” communications director Jeremy Woodrow said.

Woodrow says $69 million in fish meal products — mostly used in animal feed — were exported to China last year.

Woodrow said one of the largest generators of fishmeal is the Alaska pollock industry.

The fishmeal market is important to Alaska because it ensures full utilization of seafood and helps generate revenue.

“The more that you can get out of the fish, the more everybody benefits,” Woodrow said. “That’s right down to the fishermen, to the processors, as well as the communities.”

Many fishing communities rely on a variety of fish taxes.

Read the full story at KTOO

 

Alaska seafood organization seeks comments on US tariffs

August 22, 2018 — An Alaska seafood organization is encouraging industry members to comment on the proposed U.S. tariffs on products imported from China that could negatively affect the state’s seafood industry.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute is asking members to comment before the September deadline on the proposed increases to tariffs that include seafood products from China, the Peninsula Clarion reported Sunday.

About $2.7 billion in U.S. seafood is processed in China and sent back to the U.S. annually with most of that coming from Alaska, according to the organization that promotes the state’s seafood industry.

In response to U.S. tariffs, China levied a 25 percent tariff on U.S. seafood imported for consumption, including Pacific salmon, cod, Alaska Pollock, and other commonly exported products. The tariffs went into effect last month, but China excluded seafood shipped into the country that is intended for re-export after processing.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative proposed increasing tariffs last month from 10 percent to 25 percent on Chinese products, including seafood. The U.S. seafood processed in China could be hit with tariffs upon re-entering the country.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Daily-News Miner

ASMI to comment on impact of proposed tariffs

August 17, 2018 — Board members of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute are keeping watch on the trade war between the U.S. and China and plan to submit formal comments in advance of the Sept. 6 deadline, says Jeremy Woodrow, ASMI’s communications director.

“We are going into this with the assumption that this is an opportunity to educate the U.S. trade representative on the importance of Alaska fisheries to the U.S. economy and Alaska workers,”

Woodrow said. “While we understand the reasons behind the proposal, the intended impact doesn’t achieve the goal. Instead of having consequences to Chinese consumers, this negatively impacts us consumers and products and U.S. fishermen and companies,” he said.

Woodrow said ASMI’s understanding at this time is that seafood products going from Alaska to China would be subject to these proposed tariffs only if consumed in the Chinese domestic market. If that seafood is being reprocessed to ship elsewhere, it would not be subject to tariff, but if it is being shipped back to the U.S., there is potential that it will be subject to the tariffs because of the proposal by Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative.

The proposed U.S. tariffs came under consideration in the wake of China’s decision to implement an additional 25 percent tariff for exported products destined for China’s domestic market. The proposed tariffs could impact the bottom line for Alaska companies that sell black cod, rockfish, flatfish and salmon roe into Chinese domestic markets.

Read the full story at The Cordoba Times

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute prepares to protest Trump’s seafood tariffs

August 10, 2018 — The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute will push back against a steep seafood tariff suggested by the Trump Administration.

In a board meeting Thursday morning, ASMI executive director Alexa Tonkovich said the organization is preparing a draft letter to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative about the importance of Alaska seafood.

ASMI’s action comes as the USTR considers a proposal to levy a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. Since that proposal was announced in early July, the USTR has announced that the tariff could be increased to 25 percent.

Among the items on the tariff list is Alaska seafood sent to China for processing.

“We believe there is value in ASMI as an apolitical industry representative (speaking up),” Tonkovich said, and the board agreed to consider the draft.

“I know that other industry groups are kind of looking for ASMI to take the lead because of their connection with (the National Fisheries Institute) and their representation of the Alaska industry,” said board member Tom Enlow, who works for the seafood company Unisea.

“We better do it, definitely,” said board chairman Jack Schultheis of Kwik’ Pak Fisheries.

ASMI is the joint marketing arm for fisheries across Alaska and is funded by a small tax on catches as well as federal grants and state assistance. This year, the Alaska Legislature approved a budget of less than $21 million for the agency.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

Alaska salmon catch down by a third in most regions

July 25, 2018 — Alaska’s salmon fisheries continue to lag alarmingly in several regions, with overall catches down by a third from the same time last year.

The single exception is at the unconquerable Bristol Bay, where a 37 million sockeye catch so far has single-handedly pushed Alaska’s total salmon harvest towards a lackluster 60 million fish.

It’s too soon to press the panic button and there is lots of fishing left to go, but fears are growing that Alaska’s 2018 salmon season will be a bust for most fishermen. Worse, it comes on the heels of a cod crash and tanking halibut markets (and catches).

State salmon managers predicted that Alaska’s salmon harvest this year would be down by 34 percent to 149 million fish; due to an expected shortfall of pinks. But with the exception of Bristol Bay, nobody expected fishing to be this bad.

Catches of sockeye, the big money fish, are off by millions at places like  Copper River, Chignik and Kodiak, which has had the weakest sockeye harvest in nearly 40 years.

The weekly update by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute said that coho and Chinook catches remain slow, and while it is still way early in the season, the “bread and butter” pink harvests are off by 65 percent from the strong run of two years ago.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Chinese delegation visits Kodiak as Trump administration issues new proposed tariffs

July 17, 2018 — A delegation from China visited Kodiak Island with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, touring fish processing plants in Kodiak and Larsen Bay.

Right in the middle of the visit, President Donald Trump’s administration proposed more tariffs, which doesn’t bode well for Alaska’s seafood trade.

But that didn’t dampen the delegation’s enthusiasm for what Alaska has to offer.

The water is low, so Alaska Department of Fish and Game employees in Kodiak are seining for sockeye salmon at the Buskin River weir.

The Chinese delegation has come to learn about local fisheries management, said Tyler Polum, sport fisheries area management biologist.

“Sometimes when the water is low, we can’t get them to go into the trap at the weir, so we thought that it would be better to beach seine for these fish,” Polum said. “We’ll show them how we sample fish to get age, sex, and length from them.”

Among the delegation, Mingzhen Zhang says Kodiak is a stark contrast to her city.

“I live in Beijing, so the best impression for me is less pollution,” Zhang said.

China’s northern capital city of more than 20 million people is infamous for smog.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Some Alaska seafood exports escape China’s retaliatory tariffs

July 13, 2018 — It appears the blowback from President Donald Trump’s trade dispute with China will fall on some but not all of Alaska’s seafood exports to the country.

The Trump administration’s 25 percent tariff on an estimated $34 billion of goods imported to the U.S. that took effect July 6 prompted Chinese leaders to respond with their own 25 percent tariff on U.S. goods headed for their country, including seafood, Alaska’s primary export.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Director of International Affairs John Henderschedt said June 28 that seafood products destined to be reprocessed and re-exported from China will be exempt from the tariffs after agency officials discussed the issue with the U.S. Embassy there.

While a positive development for Alaska fishermen and processors, the cumulative impact the tariffs could have on the commercial fishing industry in the state is still unknown, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute Technical Program Director Michael Kohan said in an interview.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Reprocessed state seafood exports exempted from Chinese tariffs

July 12, 2018 — It appears the blowback from President Donald Trump’s trade dispute with China will fall on some, but not all of Alaska’s seafood exports to the country.

The Trump administration’s 25 percent tariff on an estimated $34 billion of goods imported to the U.S. that took effect July 6 prompted Chinese leaders to respond with their own 25 percent tariff on U.S. goods headed for their country, including seafood, Alaska’s primary export.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Director of International Affairs John Henderschedt said June 28 that seafood products destined to be reprocessed and re-exported from China will be exempt from the tariffs after agency officials discussed the issue with the U.S. Embassy there.

While a positive development for Alaska fishermen and processors, the cumulative impact the tariffs could have on the commercial fishing industry in the state is still unknown, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute Technical Program Director Michael Kohan said in an interview.

Overall, Alaska exported more than $4.9 billion of goods in 2017, of which more than $2.4 billion was seafood, according to the state Office of International Trade.

China bought $1.3 billion worth of Alaska’s exports last year, including $796 million — nearly a third — of the state’s total seafood exports.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce