Chilean salmon producers stopped shipping their products to China this week and are now looking to other markets to offset the effects of the coronavirus outbreak.
"This week we are not sending anything to China and producers are trying to relocate products to other markets such as Brazil and the United States," Arturo Clement, president of the Chilean salmon producers association SalmonChile, told IntraFish.
"We are watching the situation closely."
In 2019 Chile shipped around 35,000 metric tons of salmon products to China.
A source with Chilean salmon farmer Muiltiexport confirmed that the company did not send any shipments to China this week.
What began as a small number of illnesses contracted from a seafood wholesale market where wild animals are also sold in Wuhan, Hubei, the coronavirus is now threatening to be the next global health pandemic.
China puts the total number of deaths so far from the virus at 170, with cases now confirmed across the nation.
More than 7,700 people have been affected in mainland China, while close to 70 cases have been reported globally.
As the outbreak has widened to the point where it has now been declared an global health emergency international airlines have been cancelling flights to China and Russia has closed its border with the Asian nation.
Elsewhere, Ecuador and India's shrimp producers are holding their breath fearing the potential collapse of the Chinese market in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Chinese government has delayed the New Year holiday to Feb. 3, with some regions such as Shanghai and Zhejiang seeing it extended to Feb. 9.
With authorities controlling logistics in the country, workers could return late to processing plants if they are unable to return on time from visiting relatives in other parts of China.
