SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton and Amy Zhong January 11, 2016
China’s Ministry of Finance announced a significant range of tariff reductions on seafood products, to take effect January 1, 2017.
The move is part of a Chinese government policy to normalize seafood imports in recognition that imported seafood has become popular with domestic consumers. More moves that normalize seafood imports are likely to follow.
The principal beneficiaries of the tariff reduction will be companies in Russia, Canada, the US and Norway.
The major reductions include H&G frozen cod and pollock. For cod, the tariff will fall from 10% to 2%.
For Pollock, from 10% to 5%.
The tariff on herring will fall from 10% to 2%.
For king crab, the tariff will fall from 10% to 5%, and for cold water shrimp especially from Canada, Russia and Greenland, the tariff will fall from 5% to 2%.
For live king crabs, an increasingly important import from Russia, the tariff will fall from 14% to 7%.
For Lobsters, from 15% to 10%, and for Geoducks, from 14% TO 10%.
The complete table of the seafood tariff reductions is below (click on image for larger version).
Canada will also benefit from the reduction on Greenland turbot, from 10% to 5%.
Duty rates have not decreased for other popular products like salmon, farmed shrimps and farmed basa fish. The reductions were focused mostly on wild seafood.
America, Canada and Russia benefit most from China’s greatly reducing tariff rates on some imported seafood. Following is a table which shows the three largest exporters of the above-mentioned seafood during 2015 in view of their export value. As it shows, in addition to the three countries, the reduction of tariff rates is also beneficial to European exporters.
A table showing the largest exporters for the major wild fishery items with tariff reductions is here:
