Nova Scotia lobster exports to China are up substantially.
China has placed heavy tariffs on U.S. lobsters.
The numbers, provided to our newsroom from Nova Scotia’s Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture ,are quite remarkable.
Nova Scotia live lobster exports to China in the first six months of 2019 are up 144% from the same period in 2018, an increase from $93.2 million to $227 million.
Nova Scotia frozen lobster exports to China have increased 25% in the same period from $8.4 million in the first six months of 2018 to $10.6 million in 2019.
37% of frozen Canadian lobster exports to China during this period are being shipped from Nova Scotia.
While Minister Keith Colwell declined to comment on trade frictions between the U-S and China he says the Americans have always been the biggest customer of Nova Scotia lobster.
“They’re special customers of ours in which we have a trade agreement which we’re very happy about. We’re very happy with the markets that we’re developing all over the world. Some of that is in Asia, the EU and Europe and some in the U-S and other countries. As far as the trade war or whatever you want describe it as with the US and China, is really beyond any realm of my responsibility and i really don’t feel I’m in any position to comment on it.”
He says Nova Scotia lobster is a top quality product.
“We’ve instituted a quality assurance program in the province and a standard for holding facilities which some of our customers in different parts of the world are adopting as well. It’s monitored by a third party which assures quality from the boat to the plate which is critical for us. We’ve put in place a lobster handling program, a course. We’re at level 2 now and it’s been very well accepted by the industry. It all goes toward adding value to our very valuable resource of our fishery.”
Colwell says the province does a lot of marketing all over the world.
“Just before I became minister there was a big study started because lobsters had dropped to $3 a pound. Quite frankly the study didn’t address the real problem. The real problem was marketing and quality. That has been corrected. Without that marketing, without the quality that the industry has put in place, without the great hard work of our processors and fishermen, this could not be possible.”
As a side note, here are the final numbers for the 2017-18 fishing season for our area:
LFA 33 – 8,422 tonnes valued at $136 million
LFA 34 – 23,955 tonnes valued at $381 million
Please note that landed weight and landed value are preliminary.
The figures for 2018-2019 are not available yet as the department hasn’t tallied all of the logbooks from fishermen.
