Study On Supply And Demand In Chinese Fish Meal Market

Fish meal is widely used in aquaculture all over the world as an important animal-based protein in feed. It is irreplaceable for growth of animal since it contains unknown growth factor. But Chinese breeding industry has urgent demand for fish meal with big total volume and swift growth, while native production can't meet the demand owing to the shortage of raw fish materials that can be caught coastally. As a result, the consumption depends on import heavily. Over-reliance on resource-based product has caused a great deal of risk and threat both economically and politically for our country. In order to reduce operational risk in downstream of fish meal industry, such as feed production industry, breeding industry, stabilize price of agricultural products and improve situation of food security, we must lead participants within the industry chain to produce, purchase and consume scientifically, stabilize price of fish meal, improve effective supply and quality of fish meal. This paper discusses the history and present status of scale and structure of demand and supply in Chinese fish meal market through methods, such as literature review, comparison and analysis of data and Porter's diamond model. Based on the above analysis we find market characteristics and influencing factors of consumption and supply.For now, total demand of fish meal is much larger than domestic production in our country so that we need rely on imports to maintain the vast majority of basic consumption. The rigid demand in breeding industry and consumption elasticity for aggravating waste which caused by mistakes exist in procurement and usage are principal factors to lead to demand's growth and fluctuation too fast and frequent. However, in our country over-exploitation before and incomplete legal system at present have irreversible impacts on coastal fishery resources in the short term. Facing the huge market demand, production of domestic fish meal only can be powerless. But as traditional countries of producing and exporting fish meal, Peru, Chile and other countries have considerable advantages on resources endowment, demand stimulus from external market, support of related industries and business strategies compared to our country. In addition, the main factors of leading to those countries' absolute superiorities in fish meal's international trade still have the changes in the global economy and strict and systematical government management in fish meal industry and related industries.Focusing on these issues about how to relieves fierce contradiction between demand and supply presently and how to achieve the goal of substantial increase of domestic fish meal production in the long run to get rid of independence on imports not only is conducive to the sustainable development of fish meal and feed industry and the management and optimal allocation of marine resources, but also conducive to the realization of China's food security. At macro level, government needs to strengthen standardized administration for fishing, marine environmental protection and operation in fish meal market, while make the policy to guide the development of breeding industry correctly, as well as establish a standardized system of indicators to measure the optimum additive of fish meal in feed as soon as possible. At micro level, among fish meal industry chain, fish meal manufacturers in upstream and feed enterprises in middle stream should reinforce firm's transformation and upgrading to total factor productivity, while also as firms in upstream, agents of importing fish meal should change purchasing strategies to weaken mainstream fish meal exporters' trade monopoly to our country, breeding industry in downstream should deal with purchasing and using more rationally.