Search Results for: China, lobster
Fish exporter pleads guilty to mislabeling Florida spiny lobster sold to China
The company, Aifa Seafood Inc., based in Florida City, faces a sentence of five years probation and a fine up to $500,000. A judge could sentence its president, 57-year-old Jiu Fa Chen, of Parkland, to up to five years in federal prison and order him to pay a fine of up to $250,000 during his scheduled May 23 hearing in Miami. According to an Oct. 5, 2022, grand jury indictment, from May 16, 2019, to Aug. 3, 2019, the company bought about 5,900 pounds of lobster from a company in Port Au Prince, Haiti, and turned around and exported it to customers in China with the label, “Florida Spiny Lobster, Product of the USA.” >click to read< 15:32
Signs China will discuss lifting trade ban, but Australian lobster fishers say diversification crucial
Trade Minister Don Farrell is yet to meet his Chinese counterpart but says ambassador Xiao Qian has indicated his government is “prepared to have these discussions”. “My job now is to convince China to change its view,” Mr Farrell said. Gordon Lewis owns two fishing boats in Port Macdonnell, South Australia, one of the country’s largest rock lobster fisheries. He said after fishing for the first few days of the season, he pulled his boats out for more than two weeks because volatile prices had made it unaffordable. “Everyone is struggling,” he said. With China no longer taking the majority of the catch, oversupply in the domestic market led to a price drop. >click to read< 09:47
Atlantic ChiCan exported U.S. lobster to China claiming it came from Canada
A Chinese-owned lobster company in Nova Scotia has been fined $50,000 for illegally shipping American lobsters primarily to China and claiming it came from Canada. Atlantic ChiCan pleaded guilty Thursday in provincial court in Dartmouth, N.S., to two counts related to the mislabeling. Between May and October 2019, the big holding facility on Cape Sable Island in southwest Nova Scotia imported 63,000 pounds of live lobster from the United States and exported it as product of Canada,,, >click to read< 17:26
Misinformation Campaign: Twitter accounts tied to China lied that COVID came from Maine lobsters
Oxford researcher Marcel Schliebs first noticed the misinformation campaign when he saw a tweet from Zha Liyou, the Chinese consul general in Kolkata, India. The tweet by Liyou said: “Major suspect of covid via cold chain identified: A MU298 of Nov. 11, 2019 carrying food from Maine, US to Huanan Seafood Market, Wuhan, Hubei via Shanghai. During the next few weeks, many workers around moving this batch of seafood got infected.” >click to read< 07:50
Banned Australian lobsters are sneaking into China via Hong Kong
Since direct shipments to China virtually ground to a halt last November, Hong Kong has become the world’s largest importer of Australian lobsters, with monthly trade growing more than 2000 per cent from October to April. While lower prices will have spurred some increased demand from Hong Kong consumers, experts say the dramatic spike is more likely due to a grey trade as the tasty crustaceans are sent across the border to the mainland. >click to read< 09:22
U.S. lobster exports to China rebounded in 2020
While the coronavirus pandemic tanked U.S. lobster exports overall in 2020, international trade data suggests the industry’s once-thriving U.S. to China trade pipeline may be making a comeback. International sales of U.S. lobster fell by 22 percent last year, from $548.4 million in 2019 to $426.9 million in 2020. The market saw declines in sales to each of the country’s top 10 international buyers, with the notable exception of China, which bought more than $127 million of U.S. lobster, or a roughly 49 percent increase over 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. >click to read< 10:34
California lobstermen ride high-price wave from China
Since it became home to California’s first lobster fishery in the early 1870s, the coastal city of Santa Barbara has established a long and proud history of lobster fishing. The industry is now experiencing a surge in demand because of a trade war between nations that are thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean. Almost all of the lobsters caught in the waters off of Santa Barbara’s coast this season will end up in China, where an ongoing dispute with Australia has worked to the advantage of California’s lobster fishing community. The surge in demand from Chinese markets has resulted in high prices that fishermen and distributors here say are without precedent, as well as plenty of uncertainty. >click to read< 08:36
China’s lobster ban helped lift Australian Christmas seafood purchases by 30 per cent
It was a difficult 2020 for Australian fishermen with COVID-19 affecting both food service and export markets. “We needed a bumper Christmas period to help us claw our way back,” Veronica Papacosta, CEO of Seafood Industry Australia (SIA) said. It seems that SIA’s campaign calling on consumers to support the struggling sector, by switching one meal on the Christmas table to seafood, worked. “We’re hearing from retailers and producers right across the country that they’re up, on average, 30 per cent from last year’s December sales,” >click to read< 07:49
Australian Lobster Sector Claws Back Trade After China Ban
Australia’s rock lobster exports are worth half a billion US dollars a year — and in normal times, 94 percent of them go to China. But all that changed a few weeks ago, when Beijing imposed a near-total import ban on lobster, part of a broader politically charged “shadow trade war”. “It has affected us drastically,” third-generation fisherman Fedele Camarda told AFP. “Our income has been reduced considerably.”,,, local authorities recently changed legislation to allow commercial rock lobster fishers to sell large quantities from the back of their boats,,, >click to read< 10:40
Western rock lobster head to supermarkets across Australia amid China trade woes
It is a deal that would have been unimaginable last Christmas, when Chinese customers were snapping up western rock lobster at jaw-dropping prices and locals in the port city of Geraldton, where they were caught, often missed out. But the fishers’ co-operative has now signed a contract with a supermarket giant to put the prized shellfish on retail shelves across Australia at the relative bargain price of $20 each for a cooked lobster. The coronavirus pandemic and worsening trade crisis with China has seen rock lobster fishers focus on the market closer to home. Video, >click to read< 11:05
Australia: Cheap lobsters on Christmas tables as prices plummet due to China import ban
Commercial fishers operating in Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia are supplying record volumes to the domestic market after China’s ban on Australian live lobster imports. With the crustaceans removed from restaurants and markets in China, (you know the drill),,,Tasmanian commercial fisher Jason Hart this week sold his catch directly to the public at the Strahan wharf. “I’ve never had to worry about selling them from the wharf before,” Mr Hart said. “Even when our markets have been bad you can still on-sell the fish. But I’ve never seen it like this,,, >click to read< 13:48
Australian lobster exports feared latest victim of China trade dispute
Tonnes of live Australian lobster are stranded on the tarmac at a Chinese airport, prompting fears they are the next victim in the ongoing trade dispute between Australia and China. The lobsters are facing Chinese customs clearance issues as exporters run out of time to get them into restaurants and shops before they are spoiled. A rejection of the lobsters or a further delay of more than 48 hours, would send a message that it is another trade strike after a year of rising tensions. In 2018-19 more than 94 per cent of Australia’s $752 million rock lobster exports went to China, >click to read< 08:17
Seafood Trade Relief Program: Funding available for Maine lobster fishermen affected by China’s tariffs
Lobster fishermen have started applying for a portion of a $527 million relief program recently unveiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help offset losses incurred due to China’s new tariff policies. The Seafood Trade Relief Program (STRP) is paying 50 cents for every pound of lobster; in 2019, Maine landed roughly 100 million pounds. The Notice of Funds Availability notes President Donald Trump’s June 24 memorandum, “Protecting the United States Lobster Industry,” directs the USDA to consider appropriate action to provide assistance to eligible U.S. commercial fishermen whose business has been impacted by foreign government trade actions that have led to the loss of exports. >click to read< 08:11
N.S. Premier Stephen McNeil: China not ‘reasonable’ requiring lobster shippers to assume Coronavirus liability
“I don’t believe that the requirement to accept liability on live seafood going into that marketplace is a reasonable one,” McNeil told reporters in Halifax Thursday. China is the second largest market for Canadian lobster, with exports of live lobster alone in 2019 valued at $457 million, most of it supplied by inshore fishermen from Nova Scotia. That demand has upended traditional economics in the fishery. Even as landings soared in recent years, the increased demand from China helped keep prices up. Earlier this year, it came crashing down when China shut down because of the Coronavirus pandemic. >click to read< 09:50
Canadian lobster to China hits another roadblock, demand a signed declaration live lobster is Coronavirus free
Canadian businesses that export lobster to China have run into another border roadblock. On Friday, Chinese importers started demanding a signed declaration that Canadian live and processed lobster is free of COVID-19 before it can enter China. “It’s a bold thing to ask and we as Canadian exporters should push back,” says Stewart Lamont of Tangier Lobster in Nova Scotia. His company flies lobster to mainland China. Lamont has refused to sign the declaration, which makes Canadian companies liable in the Chinese court system if there is a problem. >click to read< 18:52
Nova Scotia Live Lobster Exports to China Hit a Snag
A recent coronavirus outbreak traced to a market in Beijing is disrupting Canadian live lobster exports to China. New testing measures imposed in at least three cities — Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou— have led to cancelled lobster shipments from Nova Scotia this week and delays for shipments that do arrive. “We’ve hit a significant snag,” said Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada. “The latest news is that they will continue to do these random inspections, which has effectively caused many of the large shipments to stop.” >click to read< 10:22
Tasmanian lobster, abalone exports at risk as latest COVID-19 outbreak closes Beijing markets – “Australian seafood exports are not being blocked by China [but] authorities there have advised that they may conduct COVID-19 testing on live, fresh, chilled and frozen imports of Australian seafood upon arrival into China,” said chairman Nathan Maxwell McGinn. >click to read< 13:08
President Donald J Trump:“We are reopening the Northeast Canyons to commercial fishing”, Threatens New EU, China Tariffs Over Maine Lobster
President Trump on Friday announced that he will reopen the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Massachusetts for commercial fishing. “We’re opening it today. We’re undoing his executive order,””We are reopening the Northeast Canyons and the Seamounts Marine Region to commercial fishing.” >click to read<
Remarks By President Trump In A Roundtable On Supporting America’s Commercial Fishermen >click to read<
Trump Threatens New EU, China Tariffs Over Lobster in Maine Trip – President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on cars made in the European Union and on unspecified Chinese products unless the two regions reduce their duties on U.S. lobster, during a visit to Maine where he plans to lift Obama-era fishing restrictions. “If the European Union doesn’t drop that tariff immediately, we’re going to put a tariff on their cars, which would be equivalent,” Trump said in a roundtable event in Bangor, Maine, with commercial fishermen and the state’s former Republican governor, Paul LePage. “It’ll be the equivalent, plus,” he added. >click to read< 15:51
New Zealand rock lobster industry back in action with exports to China
The New Zealand lobster industry was among the first and hardest hit by Covid-19, with the export of live lobsters from New Zealand stopping in late January when China closed its restaurants and freight to the country was restricted. However, Te Anau-based Fiordland Lobster Company, which exports about 40 percent of New Zealand lobster to China, has started up again this week and its product will begin arriving in Shanghai this weekend. Lobster Exporters of New Zealand chairman Andrew Harvey confirmed lobster exports into China had resumed after “stopping dead” in late January. >click to read< 10:21
57.7 tons of Boston lobsters from Canada arrive in East China city
A total of 57.7 tons of Boston lobsters from Canada has arrived at Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport in East China’s Zhejiang province on a charter flight Thursday, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Saturday. This is the first lobster import cargo charter flight at the airport, one of the designated ports for imports of edible aquatic animals, since the COVID-19 outbreak this year, the GAC said. >click to read< 07:02
Lobster back on the menu for recovering China
In a welcome sign that life in China returning to normal, tonnes of rock lobster has left Perth for Shanghai in the past few days.The lobster left on return flights after mining billionaire Andrew Forrest and the West Australian government organised the delivery of medical equipment from China.Separate to those flights, it is understood the first air shipment of seafood and other fresh produce under the Morrison government’s $110 million rescue package for exporters will depart on Thursday.The indications China has regained its appetite for high-end Australian produce comes with local consumers set to enjoy an abundance of seafood at rock bottom prices on Good Friday. >click to read< 16:39
Coronavirus: Global lockdown to hit China’s supplies of steak, lobster, wines
Just over a month ago, supply chains in China were thrown into chaos as trucks and planes delivering goods to the world came to a standstill. Now, China’s economy is moving back towards capacity, while the supply shock from the coronavirus pandemic is beginning to affect many Western countries, as they look to contain the virus’ spread. But this second round of supply shock enveloping countries around the world may mean China’s growing middle classes find themselves strapped for premium overseas food such as meat and dairy products,,, Video, >click to read< 11:26
Coronavirus Breakthrough! Live lobster shipment from Nova Scotia to China resumes
For the first time in more than a month, live lobster from Nova Scotia has been flown to China, after fear of the coronavirus and travel restrictions caused market sales to plummet. Premier Stephen McNeil said just under 70 tonnes of live lobster were shipped from the Halifax Stanfield International Airport to China on Saturday, which is about two-thirds of a full flight. “We’re just hoping it’s the first of many,” McNeil told reporters at the legislature Tuesday. more, >click to read< 16:45
Coronavirus: Flights of live lobster to China plummeted in late January. When will they resume?
“It’ll probably be three or four months at least,” Keith Colwell told reporters after announcing $2.5 million in funding for a lobster quality research and innovation centre at Université Sainte-Anne in Church Point, N.S. “It’s a concern for us. It’s a serious concern, not just with lobster, but everything we export there.” Initially, Colwell called it a blip.,, “I think this is a big deal, particularly the way they’ve dealt with it, like they’ve closed stuff down,” said Chandra Gavin, a commercial fisherman from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. “We went through SARS and I don’t think any of that, none of this happened for that.” Video, >click to read< 07:47
Lobster Quality Research and Innovation Centre To Help Fishery – >click to read<
Stranded lobsters and missing wedding dresses: The coronavirus is a daily reminder of China’s global reach
All along the western Australian coast, a backlog of rock lobsters are stuck waiting in their tanks, as their main market remains all but closed. In New Jersey, a boutique has been unable to fill all its wedding dress orders. A small business owner in London can’t source enough human hair extensions, wigs and weaves for its online sales. The deadly novel coronavirus that has devastated the Chinese economy is having a ripple effect across the globe. The food we eat, the work we do and the clothes we wear — many are daily reminders of the vital role China plays in the global economy. >click to read< 08:27
US-China Trade Deal: US lobster dealers anxious to resume business with China
Hugh Reynolds, a lobster dealer from Stonington, Maine, was excited to learn that the China-US phase-one economic and trade deal came into effect on Feb 14. According to the deal, China promises to purchase more agricultural products from the United States, and lobster is highlighted in the sector.,, Annie Tselikis, executive director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association, said China accounted for 15 percent to 20 percent of the export value of US lobsters at the time. >click to read< 09:43
‘Lobsters overboard’ as China bans live seafood trade over coronavirus fears
Australia’s seafood industry has been thrown into crisis by the ban, with local fishermen considering a plan to return thousands of lobsters to the open waters. The export industry has ground to a halt in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania as China usually imports about 90 to 95 per cent of locally-grown lobsters. >click to read< 16:47
In a matter of days, N.S. lobster shipments drop ‘dramatically’ to China due to coronavirus
Exporter Stewart Lamont of Tangier Lobster said the sharp drop in lobster exports to China happened in a matter of days. “We’ve seen them diminish dramatically to the point that as of yesterday and today they’re almost non-existent,” he said.”There’s a recognition that the coronavirus is a significant health issue in mainland China. Under those circumstances, there aren’t the normal people in the shops and the restaurants and the cafés. >click to read< 14:37
Support local fishers by buying local! Virus outbreak in China triggers Tasmanian lobster lockout
Tasmania’s rock lobster industry has been left treading water following mass cancellations from Chinese buyers.,, “Because of that the restaurants have cancelled their orders,” Mr Sansom said. He estimated more than 90 per cent of Tasmania’s red rock lobster market was exported to China each year. “The exporters, their tanks are full. Which means the fishermen can’t sell it, so their boats are full,” he said. “As far as I know no one is exporting. >click to read< 10:06
The U.S.- China trade agreement will slow Canadian lobster sales to China
Even though a new U.S.-China trade agreement does not eliminate heavy Chinese tariffs, the deal will result in a loss of Canadian seafood sales to China,,, Canadian live lobster exports to China, mostly from Nova Scotia, soared after China slapped retaliatory tariffs of 35 per cent on U.S. lobsters. U.S. lobster exports tanked while Canadian sales jumped,,, The new trade deal does not lower those tariffs. But China has pledged to buy $32 billion worth of American agricultural products over the next two years, including lobster and other seafood products. >click to read< 17:38
US lobster industry hopes new deal renews trade with China
One group that is cautiously optimistic about the trade deal signed Wednesday between the U.S. and China is the lobster industry. The hope is that the deal will reopen one of the biggest markets in the world for lobsters. China is one of the biggest export destinations for lobster, which are trapped in the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean by American and Canadian fishermen. >click to read< 06:59
Maine lobster industry will benefit from the China trade deal, Sen. Collins says – >click to read<
