Since last week, processors have been waiting to find out whether secondary processing of Alaska fish will be subject to a new 25 percent tariff, which China announced Friday in retaliation to American tariffs on Chinese goods.
The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute says, as far as they can tell, the answer is no.
“Our information from our office in China and from our trade partners in China is that this new 25 percent tariff will not be applied to seafood that is processed in China for re-export,” Alexa Tonkovich, Executive Director of ASMI, said.
Tonkovich adds that the logistics of how these tariffs will be applied are still being worked out, and ASMI is monitoring the situation as it evolves.
Alaska seafood processors often head and gut fish then send it to China for secondary processing and it is exported to other countries from there.
Kodiak processors have told KMXT that they have product in China, on the way to China, and product loaded into frozen containers that they have been holding in Kodiak that they want to send to China for reprocessing.
A delegation from China is scheduled to visit Alaska in July.
ASMI will host the group, which plans to tour fish processing plants in Kodiak and Larsen Bay. The visit comes on the heels of Governor Bill Walker’s trade mission to China.
China is the largest export market for Alaska seafood and a major reprocessing location.
Daysha Eaton is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.
Daysha Eaton holds a B.A. from Evergreen State College, and a M.A. from the University of Southern California. Daysha got her start in radio at Seattle public radio stations, KPLU and KUOW. Before coming to KBBI, she was the News Director at KYUK in Bethel. She has also worked as the Southcentral Reporter for KSKA in Anchorage.
Daysha's work has appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", PRI's "The World" and "National Native News". She's happy to take assignments, and to get news tips, which are best sent via email.
Daysha became a journalist because she believes in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us and they help us make sense of our world. They shed light on injustice and they comfort us in troubled times. She got into public broadcasting because it seems to fulfill the intention of the 4th Estate and to most effectively apply the freedom of the press granted to us through the Constitution. She feels that public radio has a special way of moving people emotionally through sound, taking them to remote places, introducing them to people they would not otherwise meet and compelling them to think about issues they might ordinarily overlook.
