Koreans consume more fishery products than Japanese

Koreans consume more fishery products than Japanese. February. 13, 2017 07:02. by Sung-Min Park min@donga.com.

A report says that Koreans eat more fish and fishery products than people of traditional maritime industry powerhouses such as Japan and Norway. However, concerns over increasing foreign dependence on fishery products are raised as production volume of domestic fishery products decreases.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries released an analysis on the state of world fisheries and aquaculture of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization on Sunday. According to the report, Koreans are the world’s largest consumer of fish with annual per capita fish consumption of 58.4 kilograms from 2013 to 2015 among 23 countries, followed by Norway (53.3 kilograms), Japan (50.2 kilograms) and China (39.5 kilograms). The EU was calculated as a country in the statistics.

“Koreans’ fishery products consumption has increased as they were trending toward more health-conscious eating. In the meantime, the volume of fishery consumption in Japan has not recovered yet after being dropped due to the Fukushima reactor accident along with decreasing consumption among youth.”

The data reveals that squids are the most eaten fishery products in Korea. The ministry analyzed the 2014 data of the Korea Rural Economic Institute on per capita food supplies and said that the amount of squid intake ranked at No. 1 with 5.4 kilograms, followed by shrimps with 4.5 kilograms, and anchovies with 4.2 kilograms.

Nevertheless, the supply prospects for fisheries and aquaculture are not bright enough. The Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that per capita fish consumption of Korea will be 64.3 kilograms in 2025. However, the yearly production volume is expected to reach at 1.98 million tons in 2025, a decrease of 2.9 percent from yearly average of 2.039 million tons from 2013 to 2015. Over the same period, the export volume is expected to drop by 250,000 tons, or 38 percent, and the import volume is expected to increase by 240,000 tons, or 15 percent.