Russia’s seafood exports from the fish-rich Far Eastern Primorsky and Sakhalin regions surged by over 70% last year, data published by the Russian regulator responsible for food safety, Rosselkhoznadzor, showed on Thursday.
The regions exported nearly 2 million tons of seafood last year, a 72% increase compared to 2022, according to the report.
China became the main buyer of fish products from Russia’s Far East, having tripled its imports on an annual basis to over 1.3 million tons last year.
The surge in Russian deliveries to China comes after Beijing imposed a ban on imports of all seafood from Japan in response to Tokyo’s discharge of treated radioactive wastewater from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean in August 2023.
Among other top consumers of Russian fish products were South Korea, Japan, Nigeria, and Thailand, according to Rosselkhoznadzor.
Russia significantly expanded the list of destinations for its seafood in 2023, Rosselkhoznadzor said, adding that pollock, cod, and crab were the products seeing the most demand. Last year, Primorsky and Sakhalin regions supplied marine products to twenty countries including Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, Chile, Togo and Georgia.
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