A huge bluefin tuna was sold for US$176,000 in the first auction of the year at a Tokyo fish market yesterday, amid growing pressure on Japan to help save the threatened fish.
The 232.6kg bluefin tuna — caught off Japan’s northern region of Aomori — fetched a winning bid of ¥16.28 million (US$176,000), said an official at the Tsukiji fish market.
It was the second-biggest such bid yet, after a record ¥20.02 million paid for a bluefin tuna in 2001, the official said.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
The fish was bought by a pair of Japanese and Hong Kong sushi restaurant owners who had also made a joint top bid for a bluefin tuna in the first auction of last year at Tsukiji, the world’s biggest fish market.
“I want to make an impact on the Japanese and Hong Kong economies by buying the highest-priced tuna,” the Sankei Shimbun daily’s Web site quoted the Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner as saying.
The auction came amid worries among Japanese, the world’s biggest consumers of bluefin tuna, about growing calls for a trade ban for the fish, which environmentalists warn is on its way to extinction.
In a move to protect the species, an international body meeting in Brazil in November agreed to cut the allowable bluefin tuna catch in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean by about 40 percent this year compared with last year.
Japan, which consumes more than 80 percent of tuna caught in the Mediterranean, endorsed the proposal and agreed to reduce its own catch quota accordingly.
“Tuna is a precious food, which is the core of Japanese food culture,” said Keiichi Suzuki, president of the Tsukiji fish market, where 2,280 tuna fish were auctioned yesterday.
“We would like to provide a stable supply while saving resources,” he said as a crowd of bidders clapped to celebrate this year’s first auction, with an opening bell echoing through the pre-dawn market.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
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SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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