THE INFLUENCE OF ECONOMIC
GLOBALIZATION TO SEAFOOD
CONSUMPTION DEMAND OF CHINESE
RESIDENTS
SHANGHAI OCEAN UNIVERSITY, CHINA
SUN Chen
chensun@shou.edu.cn
OUTLINE


Data sources and methodology
Consumption features of seafood of Chinese residents




Difference between urban and rural consumption of
seafood
Difference among
consumption
different
regions
of
seafood
The impact by globalization to seafood consumption



The general consumption level of seafood of Chinese
residents
The change brought by globalization to China
The changing consumption features of seafood of urban
residents
Conclusion and discussion
DATA SOURCE:
We relied on historical data from the following
resources for our investigation: Chinese Fisheries
Statistics Yearbooks, Chinese Export and Import
Statistics Yearbooks of Aqua-products, and Statistics
Yearbooks of China.

Stratified random sampling was conducted.

Three metropolitan cities including Shanghai,
Beijing and Xian were chosen to get the data. In
each city, four districts were selected. The total
sample is 320 in which the valid is 310 including
99 of Beijing, 100 of Shanghai and 111 of Xian.
The general consumption
level of seafood of Chinese
residents
50.00
45.00
40.00
35.00
30.00
25.00
20.00
15.00
10.00
5.00
0.00
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Fig.1 Per capita ownership of seafood of Chinese residents (unit:
kg)
(Sources: China Statistics Yearbook. Applied in Fig.13 and Fig.14.)
25
seafood
20
pork
15
beef and
mutton
10
poultry
egg
5
0
2000
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Fig.2 Per capita consumption of different
food of Chinese urban residents (unit: kg)
2012
18
16
14
seafood
12
pork
10
6
beef and
mutton
poultry
4
egg
8
2
0
2000
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Fig.3 Per capita consumption of different
food of Chinese rural residents (unit: kg)
2012
Difference between urban and
rural consumption of seafood
urban residents
rural residents
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Fig.4 Per capita seafood consumption of
Chinese residents (unit: kg)
Difference among different
regions of seafood consumption
Table 1 Per capita seafood consumption
of rural residents
unit: kg
2005
2006
2007 2008 2009
2011
2012
The east
9.42
9.54
9.88
201
0
9.86 10.07 9.85
10.30
12.26
The
Middle
The west
4.53
4.61
5.17
4.86
4.71
4.64
5.11
4.85
1.39
1.44
1.64
1.61
1.62
1.60
1.62
1.45
The
northeast
4.46
4.54
4.74
4.60
4.50
4.23
4.65
4.41
(sources：China Statistics Yearbook. )
The change brought by
globalization to China
With the economic globalization, there happened a great
deal change in China.

The openness
significant development
the
income level of Chinese resident increased rapidly.

The economic development
an obvious progress
in the urbanization.

“Single Child ” policy, the more freely flowing of
population
ratio of aging population increased fast.
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
The west rural residents
The west urban residents
2006
The Middle rural residents
2005
The Middle urban residents
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
Fig.5 The per capita annual income of Chinese residents of the Middle
and the west
(sources: China Statistics Yearbook. Applied in Fig.24 and Fig.25.)
60.00%
The west
The Middle
Average of China
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Fig.6 The urbanization level of China
2011
2012
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
0.00%
2.00%
4.00%
6.00%
8.00%
Fig.7 The percentage of the people older than 65
in the total population
10.00%
The changing consumption
features of seafood of urban
residents

The proportion of consumption expenditure
of seafood to household food consumption
expenditure increased.
The proportion:
18.03% （in 2007）
20.47%（ in 2012）
60.00%
2012
53.40% 52.17%
2007
50.00%
40.00%
28.57%
30.00%
25.73%
20.00%
10.00%
10.68% 9.32%
2.91% 3.11%
5.34% 5.59%
1.94%
1.24%
0.00%
niutrition food safety preference
and health
price
custom
Fig.8 The causes for seafood consumption
other
Fish, crab and shrimp are prior to other
species while purchasing. Recently, the
portion of shellfish and seaweeds slightly
decreased
while
the
increased somewhat.
one
of
mollusks
mollusks,
4.36
seaweeds,
10.16
shellfish,
2.82
others,
1.14
shrimp,
23.67
fish, 57.31
Fig.9 In 2012
seaweeds,
10.83
shellfish,
3.16
mollusks,
3.88
others,
0.90
shrimp,
23.30
fish, 56.72
Fig.10 In 2007
The main forms of seafood consumed by the
urban residents are frozen, chilled whole
fish and primary processed fresh one, but
in recent years, the percentage decreased.
60.00%
53.61
56.57
2012
2007
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
21.49
21.61
20.00%
10.00%
6.63
10.44
4.87
8.05
7.43
8.26
0.00%
Fig.11 Different seafood forms consumed by urban residents
0.40
0.64
90.00
80.00
70.00
60.00
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
77.27
19.09
9.74
2.60 1.29
0.00 0.32
70.55
2012
2007
2.60 2.27 5.52 3.24 2.27 3.24
Fig.12 The factors concerned by the urban residents while purchasing
Pedlars’ market is the main place for urban
residents to purchase seafood, but in recent
years,
other
buying
channels
like
supermarket, seafood stores and even online
shopping are gradually accepted by the
customers.
50.00%
45.00%
47.38%
2012
2007
43.30%
40.00%
35.00%
31.96%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
27.49%
20.27%
20.07%
15.00%
10.00%
3.61% 3.98%
5.00%
0.86% 1.08%
0.00%
pedlars' marketsuper market
stores
online shopping
Fig. 13 The sequence of purchasing places of seafood
others
CONCLUSIONS
Seafood consumption level of Chinese residents is
low compared with either that of the average level
of world or the total output of China. Particularly,
consumption level of rural residents and residents
in middle and western regions are much lower.
Apparently, there exists huge potential in seafood
consumption
in
China.
Moreover,
with
the
globalization, a lot of change happened in China.
With such great change, seafood consumption not
only evidenced an increasing tendency, but also
showed some different features.
DISCUSSION

On the level of government, one hand, propaganda on the
nutrition of seafood should be improved hard so as to modify
consumer’s preference of seafood over other food with protein.
On the other hand, appropriate economic policy should be
conducted so as to increase the income of residents, especially
the income of those in rural areas and in middle and western
regions.

On the level of enterprises, one hand, processing technology
should be made a progress so as to supply more varieties
processed seafood to feed diversified demand of consumers. On
the other hand, cold logistics technology and system should be
built so as to supply sufficient live and fresh seafood with
quality safety for consumers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
To be complete, I would have to acknowledge every
author listed in the reference as well as many
other
individuals
from
whom
I
have
had
discussions on demand of seafood in China. I will
only mention Mr. LEI Jian-wei from INFOYU for
his help on the report. I am also grateful to my
graduate students, WU Yan and WANG Jian-guo
for their hard work of data collecting and data
sorting out.