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All Fish for China?

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An Erratum to this article was published on 13 February 2015

Abstract

In this paper we examine the effect of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the level of fish intake in China in comparison with the rest of the world. We also analyse the origin and destination of China’s seafood products in order to understand the main patterns during the last decades. The results show that in the 1961–2011 period the rate of growth of the GDP in China doubled that of other developing regions, while the daily fish intake of China increased fourfold, making China the largest fish consumer in the world. Given the size and scale of China’s role in production, consumption, and global transformation of seafood markets, China is shaping a new era of industrialization in the history of the fishing industry.

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Notes

  1. See http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD. As well known, the GDP at purchasers’ prices is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products (World Bank 2013).

  2. See http://www.fao.org/fishery/statistics/softare/fishstatj/en.

  3. See http://www.fao.org/fishery/statistics/global-aquaculture-production/en.

  4. See http://www.fao.org/fishery/statistics/global-commodities-production/en.

  5. See http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/vitstats/.

  6. See http://comtrade.un.org/db/default.aspx.

  7. Including all species TARIC code 03 ‘Fish and crustacean, mollusc and other aquatic invertebrates’, those who have undergone to some form of manipulation or treatment included in the TARIC code 16 ‘Meat, fish and seafood food preparations nes’, and code 08142 ‘Flours and meals of fish, crustacean, etc., unfit for human (for further details, see the Electronic Supplementary Material).

  8. The Engel curve describes how household expenditure on a particular product varies with the level of household income, other variables being equal.

  9. The determination coefficient is in parenthesis.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to Bo Söderström (Editor-in-Chief) for his valuable comments and suggestions that improved the final version of this paper. They also thank Félix Francisco Chumbiray Mendoza (Ministry of Production, Peru), and participants in the Subregional Workshop for South America on Valuation and Incentive Measures (Santiago de Chile, May 14–17 2012) organized by the UNEP Program and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for fruitful discussions. SV was funded by Pedro Barrié de la Maza Foundation, Campus do Mar-International Campus of Excellence and the Norwegian Research Council. SRR acknowledges the financial support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Santiago de Compostela, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Av. Burgo Nacións s/n, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Spain

    Sebastián Villasante, David Rodríguez-González, Manel Antelo, Susana Rivero-Rodríguez & José A. de Santiago

  2. Campus do Mar, International Campus of Excellence, Vigo, Spain

    Sebastián Villasante

  3. Centro Nacional Patagónico (CENPAT), CONICET, Puerto Madryn, Argentina

    Sebastián Villasante

  4. Departamento de Ecoloxía e Bioloxía Animal, Campus Lagoas-Marcosende, Universidade de Vigo, 36310, Vigo, Spain

    Gonzalo Macho

  5. Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, 715 Sumter Street, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    Gonzalo Macho

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  1. Sebastián Villasante
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  2. David Rodríguez-González
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  3. Manel Antelo
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  4. Susana Rivero-Rodríguez
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  5. José A. de Santiago
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  6. Gonzalo Macho
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Correspondence to Sebastián Villasante.

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Villasante, S., Rodríguez-González, D., Antelo, M. et al. All Fish for China?. AMBIO 42, 923–936 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-013-0448-9

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