March 13, 2020 — Russia’s seafood industry is facing a serious threat from the COVID-19 pandemic, with two of its biggest export markets, China and South Korea, essentially shut down.
China and South Korea are crucial to Russia, accounting for a vast majority of the country’s seafood exports. In 2019, Russia exported 1.7 million metric tons (MT) of seafood, with 1.2 million MT, or 70.5 percent, going to China. Half of this volume was pollock, according to the Russian Customs Service.
March 10, 2020 — Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. and its surrounding areas have emerged as the epicenter of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak within the United States, with 136 of the country’s 545 reported cases reported there as of the morning of Sunday, 8 March, according to the Washington Department of Health.
The resulting public health crisis has led to a severe decline in seafood exports to China, where the virus originated late last year. Seattle Shellfish, which produces geoduck for export to China, has laid off more than 35 of 60 employees hired just two months ago in January.
March 9, 2020 — Like other commercial fishermen along the east and west coasts, Ethan Wallace had been waiting 18 months for China — the world’s largest importer of live lobster — to lift its crushing retaliatory tariffs on American seafood that had whittled down his profits.
This week, that moment came: Beijing started allowing Chinese businesses to apply for tariff exemptions. But for Mr. Wallace, it no longer mattered.
Tariffs or not, no one in China is buying. The coronavirus outbreak meant the Lunar New Year banquets and wedding parties that feature a fresh lobster on every plate, a symbol of good fortune, were canceled. In several cities, restaurants are shuttered and public indoor gatherings are prohibited. And even if they weren’t, many of the planes that ferry live lobsters aren’t flying to China.
“Boom! Coronavirus,” said Mr. Wallace, 28, after he had steered Piece of the Pie, his 43-foot Torres boat, into the Keys Fisheries marina in Marathon. Although the season continues through the end of March, he and his crew that day took home more lobster traps than pounds of lobster from the Gulf of Mexico.
March 9, 2020 — Alaska’s major economic sectors are trying to find the best way to monitor and respond to the impact of the global spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus first documented in Wuhan, China, in December.
While China is a significant trade partner with Alaska, regardless of whether the virus shows up in Alaska, it could disrupt the state’s most significant financial drivers. With billions of dollars at stake, Alaska’s fishing, tourism, and oil and gas industries are in an awkward position between knowns and unknowns as they prep for how the virus will impact their businesses.
The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is staying ready with round-the-clock mopping, wiping, and scrubbing.
“Our materials and our methods that we use here are designed to stop the spread of communicable disease in the airport. Whether it’s coronavirus or influenza or rotavirus or norovirus — all of those — we are always trying to keep the airport clean and safe,” airport manager Jim Szczesniak told KTUU.
The cleaning work is an investment in keeping goods and people moving through the airport, a global hub. Eighty percent of all air cargo from Asia to North America stops at the airport, and just under six million people pass through its terminals each year, many over the summer.
Vacationers bring about $4.5 billion into Alaska each year.
Among them: 1.4 million cruise ship passengers.
March 3, 2020 — Seafood coming from and going to China is piling up in freezer vans and cold storages indefinitely as the coronavirus continues to cause commerce chaos around the world.
Virus precautions mean that many ships can’t get into Chinese ports, others are stuck at docks waiting for workers to return, and still more are idling in “floating quarantined zones,” as countries refuse to allow crews of ships that have docked at Chinese ports to leave the boat until they have been declared virus-free.
Alaska seafood exports to China of nearly $1 billion include products for their own markets, but the bulk goes there for reprocessing and shipment back to the United States and other countries.
“If you have plants that have product coming in and no workers to fill it, you’re going to get that overflowing cold storage situation. So it’s definitely a problem on the reprocessing side. On the consumption side, if people aren’t going out to eat and going out to the market to buy seafood, that’s going to take consumption down as well. So there’s a couple different ways that it’s working against moving seafood through the supply chain,” said Andy Wink, director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association and an economist who has tracked world salmon markets for more than a decade.
March 2, 2020 — China is unleashing a new wave of subsidies to bolster the seafood sector, as it struggles with closed factories and migrant workers stranded far away from their workplaces due to fallout from the COVID-19 coronavirus.
China is waiving taxes and payments to seafood buyers who take up the supply sitting in the country’s aquaculture ponds, and the powerful Export Import Bank has offered up to CNY 1.5 billion (USD 210 million, EUR 195 million) in loans to distant-water fishing firms and processors in Fujian Province as a way to prop up the sector.
February 28, 2020 — The ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, commonly known as the coronavirus, is expected to have a long-term impact on China’s seafood sector as everything from aquaculture to processing is being affected by labor shortages and wary Chinese consumers.
The Chinese government has mounted a major propaganda offensive this week to convince seafood processing factories to recommence work, with good news stories appearing in local media nationwide of workers arriving back at factories.
February 27, 2020 — The “Great Power Competition” with Russia and China isn’t limited to winning allies in geostrategic flash points or sailing through contested areas to promote freedom of the seas, according to the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Near-peer adversaries “are actively exploiting other nations’ natural resources, including fish stocks. In many cases [they are] challenging the sovereignty of smaller or less-developed nations,” Adm. Karl Schultz said in his annual State of the Coast Guard address, live-streamed Feb. 20 from Charleston, South Carolina.
Schultz identified China, which has the world’s largest distant water fishing fleet, as “one of the worst predatory fishing offenders,” engaging in Illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing (IUU). The problem goes beyond conservation and sustainability, he said — “This is a national security challenge warranting a clear response.”
An essential protein source for more than 40% the world’s population, fish stocks are critical to the sovereignty and economic security of many nations. The most conservative estimates put the annual loss to the global economy from IUU fishing at more than $23 billion.
February 20, 2020 — A lot of people in the seafood industry are thinking about coronavirus (COVID-19). The major impact has been on shipping, tourism, and travel, all of which are vital to the North American seafood industry.
The question is whether this is a short-term event like a hurricane or political strike that impacts one area of our supply chain, or if this is a year-long global pandemic, leading to big changes in behavior in our markets.
Clearly we don’t know yet, despite people like the CEO of Mowi saying it is a short term event. However, we can already see some supply and demand disruptions, and we can prepare for others. After thinking about this for the last couple of weeks, here are some preliminary ideas.
Some products disrupted more than others initially
Most seafood products have not suddenly changed in price over the past few weeks. If you look at Urner Barry’s dashboard, the majority of items remain green, showing rising or steady prices.
February 20, 2020 — The Global Aquaculture Alliance, which operates the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification, has announced an extension period for Chinese seafood companies in the process of applying for BAP certification.
A statement from GAA Communications Manager Steven Hedlund said the extension was granted as a result of the outbreak of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus, which has disrupted business in China.