A friend who works in the fishing industry is telling me the fishing companies in the Russian Far East are getting desperate due to China's ban on the imports of frozen fish. The ban was imposed in December due to concerns that covid could get into China via the cold chain. /1

There are no signs China will resume fish imports any time soon. The Russian Far East's fishing industry makes most of its profits from export sales, 70% of which (mostly pollack) went to China. /2

To make at least some money, some fishing companies are now switching from pollack to herring (which is a cheaper and far less profitable fish). They hope to sell it to Africa. Russia itself can neither store nor process the volumes of fish that previously went to China. 3/3