Archive for category: Various statistics

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Why do we import Norwegian mackerel even though our country has no shortage of mackerel caught and is actually exporting it?

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Most of the countries to which mackerel caught in the waters near our country is exported are African countries. Among the 27 countries to which our country exported more than 50 tons of mackerel in 2022, 14 were African countries, but the amount imported by these countries accounted for 74.3% of our country’s total exports.

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The main reason why African countries import such large quantities of mackerel is that they are economically poor, which leads to a lack of fishing boats, fishing technology, and processing facilities.

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Additionally, during that time, mackerel was imported from Europe, which was under colonial rule, to supply the protein that was lacking for the people, but as European countries began to limit the mackerel catch and set catch limits for fishing boats to protect fishery resources, the direction of catching large mackerel that could be sold at a high price rather than small mackerel that was cheap also played a role.

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However, this does not mean that our country indiscriminately catches small mackerel. Most of the mackerel caught in coastal waters are less than 30cm and 500g on average, and the fact that they are too small to be distributed domestically is the biggest reason why we export a large amount of mackerel to Africa.

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Some say that African countries import mackerel from Korea and Japan because they like mackerel with small roe, but that is just nonsense.

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It is not that they import small mackerel because they like it, but rather that they cannot import expensive European mackerel because they are financially poor.

In particular, the mass production of such false information through blogs that reproduce materials distributed by government agencies for promotional purposes must be avoided in the future.

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Meanwhile, our country imports refrigerated mackerel and frozen mackerel separately, but as can be seen in the picture below, the import volume of refrigerated mackerel is not large, so we will focus on frozen mackerel here.

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Before that, looking at FAO statistics, the global mackerel catch in 2020 was 3.521 million tons, with China and Japan taking 1st and 2nd place with 11.1% and 10.7% shares, respectively, while Korea caught 77,650 tons, taking 2.21% of the market share.

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ranking	Country name	Catch (tons)	Market share
1	china	392,556	11.15%
2	japan	376,600	10.70%
3	russia	235,717	6.69%
4	India	217,000	6.16%
5	Norway	211,617	6.01%
6	uk	205,676	5.84%
7	Morocco	185,986	5.28%
8	Iceland	151,534	4.30%
9	Ecuador	127,757	3.63%
10	Peru	98,685	2.80%
11	thailand	95,383	2.71%
12	Indonesia	94,667	2.69%
13	Chile	86,045	2.44%
14	Philippines	83,182	2.36%
15	korea	77,650	2.21%
16	Faroe Islands	71,309	2.03%
17	taiwan	65,600	1.86%
18	Ireland	61,241	1.74%
19	Belize	51,410	1.46%
20	Mexico	50,772	1.44%
21	malaysia	50,280	1.43%
22	Spain	49,637	1.41%
23	Georgia	45,000	1.28%
24	Denmark	37,973	1.08%
25	Netherlands	36,257	1.03%
26	Pakistan	36,002	1.02%
27	Angola	30,947	0.88%
28	germany	30,598	0.87%
29	Portugal	27,704	0.79%
30	Greenland	26,577	0.75%
31	Senegal	24,370	0.69%
32	Lithuania	22,548	0.64%
33	france	21,455	0.61%
34	Ghana	13,758	0.39%
35	Argentina	13,532	0.38%
36	Mauritania	12,885	0.37%
37	Oman	10,623	0.30%
38	USA	8,756	0.25%
39	New Zealand	8,527	0.24%
40	Canada	7,809	0.22%
41	Yemen	7,395	0.21%
42	South Africa	5,800	0.16%
43	Poland	5,483	0.16%
44	Egypt	5,048	0.14%
45	brazil	4,815	0.14%
46	Tanzania	4,417	0.13%
47	Iran	3,970	0.11%
48	Sweden	3,689	0.10%
49	Saudi Arabia	3,595	0.10%
50	Côte d’Ivoire	3,060	0.09%
51	Tunisia	2,785	0.08%
52	Türkiye	2,412	0.07%
53	Greece	2,199	0.06%
54	Croatia	2,013	0.06%
55	Venezuela	1,780	0.05%
56	australia	1,196	0.03%
57	Guinea-Bissau	1,114	0.03%
58	Italy	1,068	0.03%
59	Kenya	748	0.02%
60	United Arab Emirates	520	0.01%
61	East Timor	380	0.01%
62	Malta	270	0.01%
63	Fiji	220	0.01%
64	Seychelles	175	0.00%
65	Syria	168	0.00%
66	Gambia	167	0.00%
67	Palestine	150	0.00%
68	Belgium	123	0.00%
69	Albania	116	0.00%
70	Gabon	115	0.00%
71	Algeria	110	0.00%
72	Republic of the Congo	86	0.00%
73	Liberia	70	0.00%
74	Brunei	43	0.00%
75	Eritrea	40	0.00%
75	Israel	40	0.00%
77	Montenegro	35	0.00%
78	Channel Islands	9	0.00%
79	Singapore	7	0.00%
80	Mayotte	6	0.00%
81	Equatorial Guinea	5	0.00%
82	Slovenian	4	0.00%
83	Cyprus	3	0.00%
84	Isle of Man	2	0.00%
Total		3,521,077	100.00%

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As previously discussed, in 2022, Norwegian mackerel accounted for 87.6% of all frozen mackerel imports, while Ghana and Nigeria accounted for 33.5% and 30.4% of total exports, respectively. Furthermore, exports to Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, respectively, amounted to 7.9%, 4.1%, and 3.6%, respectively, suggesting that mackerel was processed in these countries and then reimported.

Oysters are the product that China accounts for the largest share of global seafood production.

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According to FAO statistics for 2020, while China’s wild oyster catch was so small that it was not counted, its farmed oysters accounted for 86.7% of the world’s farmed oysters and produced 5.42 million tons, accounting for 85.7% of the total global production (the combined production of wild and farmed oysters).

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This is 16.6 times the amount produced by our country, which produced a total of 326,000 tons, and 67 times more than France. According to the 2020 statistics released by the FAO, if you look at the graph of the production of 22 countries that produced more than 1,000 tons of oysters, you can get a sense of how much China produces.

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ranking	Country name	Catch (tons)	Form (ton)	Total (tons)	%
1	china	0	5,424,632	5,424,632	85.11%
2	korea	25,805	300,084	325,889	5.11%
3	USA	36,067	147,259	183,326	2.88%
4	japan	0	158,900	158,900	2.49%
5	france	11	80,785	80,796	1.27%
6	Mexico	47,714	5,928	53,642	0.84%
7	Philippines	67	53,032	53,099	0.83%
8	taiwan	78	19,165	19,243	0.30%
9	thailand	0	15,747	15,747	0.25%
10	Canada	303	10,643	10,946	0.17%
11	Ireland	0	9,475	9,475	0.15%
12	australia	0	9,011	9,011	0.14%
13	russia	205	4,102	4,307	0.07%
14	India	0	4,000	4,000	0.06%
15	Portugal	35	3,597	3,632	0.06%
16	brazil	1,000	1,700	2,700	0.04%
17	Netherlands	24	2,350	2,374	0.04%
18	uk	16	2,210	2,226	0.03%
19	New Zealand	848	1,364	2,212	0.03%
20	Cuba	0	1,150	1,150	0.02%
21	Spain	8	1,089	1,097	0.02%
22	Channel Islands	0	1,010	1,010	0.02%
Total		112,181	6,257,233	6,369,414	99.93%

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The graph below shows our country’s oyster production, which may seem surprising, but our country has been unable to avoid a deficit in its foreign trade balance for oysters since 2005, and since posting a deficit of 1.1746 trillion won in 2018, it has maintained a deficit of around 1 trillion won every year. This may be surprising to many.

※ For convenience, an exchange rate of 1:1,300 won was applied here.

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The oyster trade deficit is mostly due to the import of frozen oysters, with China accounting for 45% and Vietnam 28.5% of the trade deficit, and imports from Spain and Somalia also amounting to 19.5 billion and 1.45 billion won, respectively.

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On the other hand, it is not known whether it is true or not, but it is said that Henry IV of France ate 300 oysters in one sitting, Napoleon always ate oysters before going into battle, and the philosopher Voltaire enjoyed eating oysters for inspiration, as can be seen from this, France is where all the oysters produced in Europe are gathered and is also ranked 5th in the world in oyster consumption.

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As I introduced in a post titled ‘One Book, Whiskey and Raw Oysters’ a long time ago  , the most famous of the European flat oysters that the French enjoy with wine is the Belon Oyster, which comes from the mouth of the Belon River in France. The Belon Oyster was especially certified and protected by the Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC), but it became extinct in the 1970s, and now only about 1% of the peak is distributed, using the same species from Ireland.

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You can guess how famous the Belon oyster is just by the fact that it is the first image that appears when you Google Belon River. It is a variety that does not grow well, has a weak vitality, and has to be raised in tidal flats, so it takes a lot of time and effort to farm, so it was expensive to begin with, but after it became extinct, its price skyrocketed even more, and now it is being imported in large quantities from China, so its price is rising even more.

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In 2022, South Korea produced 325,889 tons of oysters, exporting 41,410 tons (12.7%) and importing 236,442 tons, or 72.6% of total production. This means that one in two oysters (whether fresh or frozen) I’ve ever eaten was imported.