Chinese market gives PNG opportunity to promote aquaculture

THE Chinese Seafood market presents the greatest opportunity to promote PNG’s coastal, inland and aquaculture sector, apart from the already developed tuna market, Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Dr Lino Tom says.
He said China’s fisheries trade was reaching well over US$21 billion (K71.06 billion), with a 26.7 per cent growth in import value midway last year.
The minister made the statement on Monday during launch of the China fisheries market which will enable PNG to export directly to mainland China.
“This is due to the huge interest to source seafood globally in response to the fast growing domestic demand on the back of a burgeoning Chinese middle class with increased purchasing power,” he said.
“Before the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, this trend had consequently changed the competitive landscape of the global seafood trade, where an increasing number of countries had taken proactive actions to forge corporative arrangements, in the form of various agreements including free trade agreements to benefit from China’s exemplary growth.”
Tom said although the Covid-19 pandemic had slowed global demand generally, PNG could position itself to benefit from China’s growing global demand.
He said PNG-China relations had grown and strengthened based on PNG’s one-China- policy.
“This has afford me as minister responsible for fisheries and marine resources to sign our fisheries MoU and the Fisheries Trade Protocol Agreement last October, in Apia, Samoa, at the 3rd China Pacific Island Countries (PICs) Economic Development and Corporation Forum,” he said.
“The Samoa signing has indeed elevated our efforts to drive our market access work through established government to government channels. Through the MoU framework and with clearly outlined requirements of the trade protocol agreement for seafood export, a number of important administrative and technical requirements were attended to.
“This saw PNG’s health certificate for dead seafood products and a comprehensive listing of exportable seafood that are to originate from PNG, approved in April, with this advice transmitted through diplomatic channels.”