Mark Godfrey

Contributing Editor

Mark Godfrey is an Irish journalist covering the agriculture and fisheries sectors in Asia, with a focus on China. Proficient in Mandarin, he has frequently traveled across China's fisheries and aquaculture regions and learned the inner workings of China's corporate world during a nearly three-year stint at the Financial Times' “China Confidential” publication. He has also reported widely across Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. He has educational certificates in agriculture and food science, as well as Mandarin.


Author Archive

Published on
September 12, 2024

Chinese seafood prices rose by an average 1.7 percent year over year in August, representing stronger price growth than the 0.9 percent price growth seen in July. 

However, a continued slump in Chinese consumer confidence has been reinforced by August economic data showing the country’s consumer price index grew by 0.6 percent in the month, compared to 0.5 percent in July – much weaker price growth than that seen in major

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Published on
September 2, 2024

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has been trying for months to secure a deal to ban harmful fishery subsidies leading to overfishing and overcapacity in global fishing fleets.

Negotiations have all failed so far, and future attempts to pass the deal are looking bleak, according to European Center for International Political Economy (ECIPE) Director and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, who told SeafoodSource that key WTO members like India have dug in on

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Published on
August 30, 2024

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has rejected calls by campaigners for more emphasis on labor standards in its certification process.

MSC spokesperson Sarah Grainger said there is no social claim associated with the MSC eco-label.

“Consumers understand this,” Grainger told SeafoodSource.

A global survey of more than 20,000 people, carried out in 2024 by the research organization GlobeScan on behalf of MSC, found that 99 percent

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Published on
August 29, 2024

Fan Xubing, the CEO of Beijing, China-based seafood consultancy firm Seabridge International, has predicted a drop in Chinese seafood imports for 2024 and highlighted that exporters shipping products to the country have had to settle for lower prices if they want to maintain a foothold in the giant market.

“Personally, I think China's seafood imports in 2024 will be less than those of 2023. I think the economy in China in the first half of

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Published on
August 20, 2024
The transparency of Chinese government data on its fishery sector has come under scrutiny in a new report from the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI), a Seychelles-based nonprofit that aims to strengthen transparency and collaboration in global marine fisheries management. FiTI is a global multi-stakeholder partnership that monitors the extent to which various governments publish fisheries information online. The organization receives… Read More