Nigeria has imported a total of N34.7 billion ($69.39 million) mackerel fish from Japan between 2019 and July 2021, despite tight import restrictions by the Federal Government. Frozen Mackerel exports were fairly steady in the first half of the year as Nigerian importers abandoned Norway and shifted to Japan’s mackerel species, which is far cheaper.

The H1’21 export value of JPY 1.5 billion ($13 million, €11 million) was 13 per cent higher than the corresponding period in 2020 and up just one per cent from that of 2019. Data obtained from International Trade Statistics (ITS) indicated that Japan had overtaken Norway by 73.87 per cent since 2018 on fish export to Nigeria.

The data revealed that Japan’s fish exports to Nigeria rose from $1.04 million or 2.14 per cent in 2016 to $48.62 million (97.8 per cent) in 2018. Its export to Nigeria in 2017 was $28.57 million. It was gathered that the pacific mackerel from Japan, which was $850 per tonne, is 43 per cent cheaper than the prices of the Norwegian mackerel species sold at $1,500 per tonne.

The main markets for mackerel have traditionally been China, South Korea and Thailand, but Nigeria, Egypt and Ghana have taken large volumes of mackerel since 2018. In August, statistics by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)’s shipping position revealed that five vessels berthed at Lagos Port’s terminals C and D with 56,178.6 tonnes of the fish. New Telegraph