China will not be lifting its import ban on Japanese seafood products anytime soon, as such Japan has no alternative but to diversify its export markets to Southeast Asia and the US. As a long term measure, Japan plans to develop its market there and reduce its dependence on China.
As part of the diversification effort, Japan recently unveiled a goal of doubling its exports to Thailand for its scallops, a leading seafood export product, to US$15 million in 2024. The announcement came as Japan’s exports of bivalves (like clams/cockles/mussels/scallops) jumped by 3 times to Vietnam, 2.3 times to Thailand and 1.7 times to the US in the 5 months ended March compared to the same period a year ago.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Canada have also increased scallop imports from Japan after the China ban. However, the rising exports to non-China markets are still not sufficient to offset the loss that Japan suffers from the ban in China market which used to command more than 51% share of Japanese scallop exports.
Japan hopes to step up its marketing and promotion efforts in these markets in the near future. With growing tourism and appreciation of Japanese, Chinese and ASEAN cuisine, there will be growing demand for high quality seafood products from Japan and consumers in these markets will be more willing to pay the prices for Japanese seafood products.
