July 9, 2018 - 11:14 — Timothy Gillespie
USA & China top two markets for Canadian lobster exports
REVISED: July is the high season in Maine for the lobster industry, but new tariffs placed on U.S. lobster exports to China are set to destabilize the state's leading industry.
Major players in the industry are very worried, according to Tom Adams, CEO of Maine Coast, a major lobster distribution company.
Adams works with more than 100 local lobstermen and fishing co-ops, exporting 60 percent of its lobsters to 29 foreign countries. But after China placed an additional 25 percent tariff on U.S. lobsters Friday, 12% of the total exports evaporated overnight.
"We will lose a crucial part of the market that we've developed over the years here in Maine — losing sales and revenue for our company, possibly making us eliminate jobs," he told the Portland Press Herald from his processing facility in York, where he employs 54 workers. The industry supports 4,500 licensed lobstermen and an additional 10,000 Mainers work directly within the industry.
In the short term, the trade war between the USA and China could be a boon for the Canadian lobster industry, Lobster Council of Canada executive director Geoff Irvine told SCT in an interview Monday. "With the additional 25% surcharge for Maine lobster to China," he said, "they will find it hard to sell at a competitive price."
But Irvine cautioned that trade wars and tarrifs are not generally a good thing. "We'll see how this affects the industry in the long term," he added. "It's still too soon to know."
Next to the USA ($518M CAD - 2017), China ($175M CAD - 2017) is the second biggest market for live lobster from Canada.
Recently, Chinese firm First Catch Fisheries established a foothold in Nova Scotia and executives there told SCT that they are shipping thousands of pounds of live lobster a week to the Chinese mainland. Plans for a processing plant in Shelburne have recently been abandoned.
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