A study about the progress and conditions of eel aquaculture industry in China

Abstract

The eel exporting industry in China started later than that in Taiwan and was behind Taiwan. However, this situation has been changed in recent years. China has become the world largest eel exporting country in the world. Japan has the largest demand of eel and eel products in the world and importing volume of the processed eel products from China has been expanding. This research investigates the factors which bring the competitive advantages for the Chinese eel exporting industry on quantitatively and qualitatively analyse and draws some useful information of its future development.

The market share and RCA of Chinese living eel products in Japanese market is lower than that of Taiwanese living eel products, but the index of Chinese processed eel products in Japan is greater than that of Taiwanese. The eel processing industry is a labour intensive industry, and labour cost is much cheaper in China than other countries and regions such as Taiwan. This is believed the main reason that gives the Chinese eel processing industry a competitive advantage in the world. According to the field study and investigation in China, we also found: 1. China is shifting its exporting mode from living eel concentration to processed eel concentration. 2. Small size eel growing plants and eel processing enterprises, which focus on exporting business, are now integrating into the eel production chain in this industry. Because of this integration and formation of business clusters, massive production and economy of scale are achieved. Meanwhile, these small size eel producers have been secured and are able to access to the foreign markets such as Japan. Moreover, the integration strategy in the Chinese eel industry also reduces the costs in the supply chain and logistics, improves the efficiency in business operation and management, helps in allocating all sorts of resources affectively, secures the product quality and safety, and improves productivity. So the reasons for the improved competitiveness in the Chinese eel exporting industry not only arises from the usage of cheaper labour, but also arises from vertical integration strategy in this industry. We propose that the Chinese eel exporting industry shall maintain this vertical integration strategy in the future.