December 3, 2013 — China’s demand for fish to replace diminished local stocks of favorites like yellow croaker is proving a boon for Argentina, which is already enjoying record sales of red shrimp in China.
“We are looking to put a lot of containers into China,” said Stuart Anderson, head of export sales at the Santa Maria Group.
Chinese buyers are eager to get hold of Argentinean croakers as well as similar fish like weakfish and black drum, Anderson told SeafoodSource. Logistics helps: China is proving a more lucrative market than Santa Maria’s key West African markets like Nigeria and Cameroon for the firm’s low-end fish like croaker and weakfish — in part because of the more prevalent shipping services connecting China and Latin America. Thus ships delivering Chinese consumer goods to Argentina are going back full with food goods like fish and shrimp.
Demand for both hake and shrimp has been strong in China, according to supplier Sebastian Guridi, head of foreign trade at Moscuzza, a Mar Del Plata based firm which ships squid as well as shrimp and fish to China.