China's fishmeal imports have been stagnating at about 1 million metric tons annually, said Gorjan Nikolik, senior analyst at Rabobank, at the North Atlantic Seafood Forum in Bergen earlier this month.
Together with its own production of fishmeal of about 450,000 metric tons -- down from 550,000 metric tons in 2013 -- the market has been relatively flat at 1.4 million metric tons.
So what's the future outlook?
Domestic production "will continue to decline," Nikolik said, stemming from a likely decline in landings and a drop in the processing industry for re-exports.
So
