China tariffs on fish for reprocess

It looks like China may apply tariffs to Alaska seafood imported for processing into products and re-exported, much of it back to the U.S. As the week ended it looked like a 10 percent tariff would be applied. The trade situation with China is so volatile that it’s  hard to say where things will end up. Frozen salmon shipped to China for reprocessing is a huge business for Alaska seafood processors. A 25 percent tariff on seafood imported for consumption in China went into effect July 5 in retaliation for a 40 percent U.S. tariffs on a range of imports from China.

China purchased $796 million in seafood from Alaska last year. Total Alaska exports to China were about $1.4 billion.

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 Relief: Bristol Bay run looks good

Bristol Bay’s sockeye run is turning out to be a good one, a relief to the state’s seafood industry after the failure of the early Copper River run and low returns of sockeyes in Cook Inlet, Kodiak and Chignik. The Copper River sockeye run has been a disaster, and harvesters and processors usually depend on the first run as a big money-maker. That didn’t happen this year.

Elsewhere in the state, cod, pollock and other whitefish are being harvested in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea; Dungeness crabs are being fished in Southeast and red king crab harvesting is underway in Norton Sound. About half of Alaska’s 17-million-pound halibut quota and a little over half of the sablefish (black cod) quotas have been caught so far this season. Halibut fishing closes Nov. 7.

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BC’s fish farm process plants

An audit of British Columbia fish processing plants that mainly serve salmon farming operations showed 70 percent of plants surveyed, or 30 plants, operating out of compliance with environmental regulations covering discharges. However, many of the violations were administrative, meaning improper paperwork. The B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy did the audits. The B.C. Salmon Farmers Assoc. agreed new standards are needed, and said many plant operators were already improving procedures, it said.