Abstract
China is the world's largest producer of aquatic products and its fishery sector is comprised primarily of aquaculture facilities, both fresh and seawater, and a much smaller wild catch component. The expansion of the aquaculture sector continues to boost China's aquatic output. The increase is attributable to several factors. Among them rapidly growing domestic demand is no doubt one of the most important reasons. Rapid economic growth and rising disposable income are influencing domestic consumption and the economic recovery of major import markets is further stimulating consumption of China's aquatic products. This paper tries to examine the status, trend and reasons of consumption of aquatic products in China. Based on the analysis on the consumption of aquatic products and its change, this paper utilizes panel regression model to estimate the affecting factors of aquatic products consumption in China. By using panel data between 1997 and 2010, the results indicate that income, urbanization, aging and dummy variable have positive effects and fish price index has negative effect on China's aquatic products consumption as predicted. However, effects of meat consumption and education on fishery consumption are totally opposite with our predictions. In other words, it turns out that meat consumption has positive effect on fish consumption while education turns out to have negative effect. Finally the member of household does not show any significant effect on consumption of aquatic products in China.
