Consumption trends and habits for aquatic products in China
Zhang Xiang-guo, College of Economics & Trade, Shanghai Fisheries University, China

Abstract

Aquatic products, a main source of protein in human food consumption are also an important item in Chinese food consumption. In the last twenty years, especially, Chinese fishery has made great strides forward, the total volume of aquatic products has increased very rapidly, and the overall production capability has been greatly strengthened in fisheries. Since the 1980s, the average annually increasing rate of fisheries harvesting has reached 8.8% in volume. The landing volume of aquatic products of China has ranked first among the world fisheries countries since 1990. The total output of aquatic products of China in 2000 reached 42.79 million MT in volume, 60% of which was contributed by freshwater aquaculture and marine aquaculture.

China is a large developing country with 1.29 billion of population, where the per capita income is continually rising; the population is also increasing, so that the demand for human edible consumption of aquatic products is increasing significantly. In recent years, despite the steady increase in domestic aquatic products, more and more imported aquatic products have appeared in the China's fish markets.

China has great potentialities to consume aquatic products; it can be taken for granted that China will become the largest fish market in the world.

In 2000, in comparison with previous years, it was very noticeable that imports of aquatic products had rapidly increased and the rate of imported aquatic product was much higher than that of aquatic product exports in both volume and value.

In recent years, the type of species being imported as aquatic products has changed considerably. The Chinese economy has been increasing rapidly for many years. In 2000, the annually growth rate of GDP in the Nation was as high as 8%. In the same year, taking the country as a whole, per capita GDP was US$ 800, while per capita GDP reached US$ 4000 in some east coastal cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen - and there are more than 10 cities where the figures were higher than US$ 3000. In some cities located in the relatively developed region in the East part of China, such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Dalian and Qingdao, the residents' average disposal incomes per capita is continuously growing. Moreover, there is a group with higher incomes accounting for 10% of the population in those cities, whose way of life and social activities are changing, with a resultant increase in the consumption of aquatic products in restaurants rather than at home. This type of clientele tends to consume higher-value aquatic products. Therefore, in 2000, among China's overall imported aquatic products, high-value aquatic products occupied a more prominent position than in the past. A random sampling survey in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Dalian and Qingdao in June and July, 2001, found that 10%~40% of people investigated had consumed higher value imported seafood.

According to an investigation and study on the potential consumption and imported seafood in mainland of China, it is considered that, at present, the consumption market of imported high-value seafood is still on the initial stage. Due to lack of the perceptual knowledge on the quality of imported high-value seafood, by the consumers and even by wholesales and retailers. Consumers and wholesales are paying more attention to the species and price, rather than quality of the seafood. So it is need to cultivate healthy seafood market quickly, to increase ability of recognizing high value seafood's quality, to enhance trust between consumers and sellers or wholesalers.

China's accession to the WTO will undoubtedly speed up the standardization of international seafood trade and seafood market in China. China's seafood import and export will be expanded so as to meet the continuously increased need to high-value seafood for Chinese higher-income residents.

It is estimated that the harvesting of Chinese domestic aquatic product will keep on growing up, but most of the increments will come from fresh water aquaculture and a few from marine aquaculture. And because of the resources status and the need of protection of marine fish resources, improvement of Chinese capture fishing in the coastal waters area is impossible in near the future, and it is expected that the harvesting of high-value marine fin-fish will be continually reduced in China's capture fishing in the coastal water areas in the future.

From now on, caused by increasing of Chinese population and the consumption per capita, the total increments of imported middle and high-value seafood will surpass that of other countries in the world. The China's accession to WTO will make help to expand the international trade between China and other countries, to improve the species constitution of seafood conflicts between domestic seafood supply and demand.