Seafood exports to China hit hard
Published:Sunday | February 9, 2020 | 12:00 AMNeville Graham - Business Reporter
Seafood exporter B&D Trawling is reeling from the impact of the coronavirus on its Chinese market, and facing the prospect of having to lay off half of his 200 workers, the head of the company says.
CEO Roderick Francis told the Financial Gleaner up to two weeks ago that B&D was exporting three shipments per week of live spiny lobster to China, totalling 20,000 pounds.
But as the Chinese authorities began adopting strict measures to control the spread of the virus, he said, the company has basically been shut off from its market.
“In the first place, you cannot get anything in since the borders are closed, and in mega cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen, persons are simply not coming on the road, with all restaurants closed. It’s very hard to see such cities become a ghost town at a time when they should be lively,” Francis said.
B&D Trawling has been shipping live lobsters to China for over two years and only got certification to export frozen lobsters in November 2019. Its first shipment of frozen lobster left Jamaica in December and arrived in China last month.
“Thankfully, our frozen lobster container arrived two weeks before the major outbreak. It was accepted in as the first frozen container and it was well received,” Francis said.
He notes that while there is still some demand for frozen lobster in Shandong Province and the capital, Beijing, the lucrative live lobster market is totally dead.
“That premium we would have got with live lobsters going into China for the Chinese New Year is totally out the door,” Francis said. The celebrations is usually a season of high demand.
“You can imagine that a time like the New Year is the height of commercial activity, and with nobody coming out, then business is dead,” he said.
Francis would not say how much revenue he stood to lose, but said industrywide the dollar fallout would be in the hundreds of millions.
Checks with another player in the export market, Rainforest Seafoods, painted a similar picture. General Manager Jerome Miles says in addition to the cessation of exports he is also concerned about the shipping containers that are now stuck in China.
“The real problem is that everything that is sent frozen to China goes in reefer (refrigerated) containers and they end up being stuck there; and so everybody worldwide is running out of reefers,” Myles said.
Meanwhile, in the face of the fallout from lower lobster exports, the B&D Trawling’s Francis estimates that it will take six months to a year for the live lobster business to come back to pre-coronavirus levels.
He wants the Jamaican authorities to reopen the now closed conch fishing season. However, the Ministry of Industry Commerce Agriculture and Fisheries says that won’t happen until March 31, at the earliest.
Fishers are barred from reaping conch for several months each season to give the conch population a chance to replenish. The regular annual close season is from September 30 through to April 30.
Nevertheless, Francis is pleading that special permits be granted to allow for even limited conch fishing.
“We would be satisfied with even 50 per cent of the previous quotas because the continued closure and the inability to export means less business, which means less staff. We will be forced to lay off people, and that will mean a lot of hungry mouths,” Francis said.