Russia supplies record amount of seafood delicacy to China – data

Exports of crab have soared amid Western sanctions

Russia has continued to increase fish and seafood exports to China, boosting crab sales to a record $148.7 million last month, RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday, citing Chinese customs data.

November saw the biggest monthly crab supply volume in the two countries’ bilateral trade, according to the analysis – up by 44% in annual terms.

Data shows that the value of crab deliveries hit nearly $1 billion in the 11 months of this year compared to $954 million for the same period in 2023.

China has become the main buyer of seafood from Russia’s Far East following Beijing’s embargo on seafood imports from Japan. The move was in response to Tokyo’s discharge of treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant into the ocean in August 2023.

Russia has also redirected much of its seafood exports to Asia due to Western sanctions.

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Last December, the US Treasury Department imposed a ban on imports of Russian salmon, cod, pollock, and crab, as well as seafood products obtained from their processing. The initial US sanctions on Russian seafood rolled out in March 2022 prohibited products exported directly to the US, but allowed these products to move freely to American consumers if they were first processed in another country.

Russia’s overall seafood exports from the fish-rich Far Eastern Primorsky and Sakhalin regions surged by over 70% last year, according food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor. The regions supplied nearly 2 million tons of fish products to 20 countries in 2023.

The latest customs data shows that exports of Russian fish and seafood to the global market in November jumped by 18% year-on-year and month-on-month, to $307 million. In addition to crab, which accounted for almost half of Russian exports, another 45% or $140 million worth of deliveries, were frozen fish, mostly cod.