N.S. exports to China hit nearly $1 billion
Nova Scotia’s exports to China ballooned to nearly a billion dollars last year, roughly 18 times more than a decade ago amid surging seafood demand in the Asian country, new trade figures show.
Yet amid a worsening outbreak of the coronavirus and ongoing diplomatic tensions, it’s uncertain whether the province will sustain its unprecedented growth streak in 2020.
Statistics Canada data released last Wednesday said the province reached a record $994 million in exports to China in 2019. That was up 25 per cent from $793 million in 2018, buoyed in part by trade tariffs on U.S. lobster. It’s also a staggering increase over Nova Scotia’s $54 million in total exports to China 10 year ago.
Premier Stephen McNeil called it “extraordinary growth,” noting that the province is continuing efforts to further expand exports to China and other Asian markets.
“This has been a tremendous market for us in terms of exporting seafood and agrifood,” he said. “It’s one that’s continued to allow us to diversify our trade and has been a boom really for many of our rural communities.”
Seafood alone accounted for about three-quarters of all exports to China last year, totalling about $728 million. It reflects the Asian nation’s growing middle class and robust appetite for seafood like lobster, oysters, shrimp and sea cucumbers.
But with the coronavirus forcing many in China to remain home and avoid public settings, lobster exports from Nova Scotia to China have now been at a standstill.
Stewart Lamont, managing director at Tangier Lobster on the Eastern Shore, said the province had “tremendous sales” of live lobster to mainland China in December and much of January. But the viral outbreak brought lobster exports to China “essentially to a halt” in just nine days, he said.
“The demand component has quickly fallen apart for the short term,” Lamont said, noting that nearly half the province’s lobster is now being redirected to other global markets. “The good news is the Nova Scotia lobster sector is extremely diversified,. The rest of the world remains our oyster.”
Still, the sudden drop in demand from one of the province’s largest trading partners has hurt prices.
In late January, fishermen would have received a shore price of $10 a pound for lobster at a wharf in southwestern
Nova Scotia. Since then the price dropped to $8 a pound and then further fell again to $7 or $6 a pound.
In addition, buyers and exporters like Tangier Lobster will likely suffer some losses on the more expensive inventory purchased before the precipitous drop in demand.
Sarah Kutulakos, executive director of the Canada China Business Council, said the coronavirus outbreak will certainly have a temporary impact on seafood exports to China. But she said it “doesn’t change the underlying consumption trend.”
“The desire for Canadian seafood doesn’t change,” Kutulakos said, noting that reaching just shy of a billion dollars in exports reflects the strengthening trade relationship between Nova Scotia and China.
“What has changed temporarily is the ability to be in situations that put consumers where they want to be eating lobster.”
She said people in China aren’t going to restaurants or gathering in social settings.
“Essentially this function of sociability has just been shut down,” Kutulakos said. “The open question now is how long does the disruption last.”
Meanwhile, exports in the coming months could also be impacted by a new U.S.China trade deal and ongoing diplomatic tensions between Canada and China. Two Canadians have been detained in China on espionage charges since December 2018, shortly after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested by the RCMP at the request of the U.S.
In response to criticisms about Nova Scotia’s continued efforts to increase trade relations with China, McNeil repeated his position that “isolation and protectionism has never worked.”
After seafood, Nova Scotia’s biggest exports to China in 2019 included wood pulp products, valued at $183 million, base metal products,
$28 million, and vehicles, aircraft and other transport equipment worth $18 million.