Explosive Growth of China's Seafood Import Market! $29 Billion Blue Ocean Emerges, Will Norwegian and Chilean Salmon Giants Dominate?

As Chinese consumers' incomes rise and lifestyles change, the demand for imported seafood continues to rise. According to a recent Rabobank report, China's seafood import market is expected to reach $29 billion (26 billion euros) by 2030, with salmon producers in Norway and Chile expected to benefit.

Novel Sharma, an analyst at Rabobank, said: "Salmon is selling well in China and there is huge potential for growth in the retail market." The report highlights that there appears to be an opportunity for companies that can use social media as a tool to serve the value-added retail market. As more and more young urban consumers adopt Western concepts, they are more inclined to choose the convenient and fast way to eat at home.

As China's urbanization continues to increase consumer purchasing power and business opportunities, the economic prosperity gap between emerging cities such as Chengdu, Dalian, Nanjing, Qingdao and Wuhan and established cities such as Beijing and Shanghai is gradually narrowing. Analysts point out that as consumers' wealth increases, they are trying new types of seafood and products, and much of the growth is likely to come from outside the traditional restaurant industry. "There is huge untapped potential in retail and e-commerce," says Mr Sharma.

While Chile has rebuilt its salmon supply chain to China in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Norway is gaining market share with excellence in product marketing. The Rabobank report predicts that China will become a seafood import market worth $29 billion (26 billion euros) by 2030, an increase of nearly 50 percent from the current market.

The report also states that China is expected to drive a 40% increase in global seafood consumption by 2030, adding more than 5.5 million tons. Sharma says this growth will also create opportunities for non-mainstream species, depending on their marketing and positioning strategies.

Sharma noted that with domestic production focused on low-value species such as carp, export opportunities to China could be significant, especially given supply-side constraints such as labor shifts to higher-paying industries, environmental constraints and resource scarcity.

In the long run, China is likely to focus on producing higher value seafood varieties, while offshore, onshore and overseas investments may be the solution to meet the growing demand for seafood, the analyst said. However, Sharma also noted that it will take time for these potential production shifts to generate enough production to have a significant impact on overall seafood consumption in China. "At least until the end of the century, growth from a value perspective will come mainly from imports," he stressed.