SALMON without any indication of origin or inspection and quarantine papers are on sale in the city’s seafood markets, the Daily Sunshine reported.

    A recent report by Guangzhou Daily indicating that 20 percent of salmon sold in Guangzhou’s markets were smuggled caught the public’s attention. The report said that sellers often claimed the smuggled fish were from Norway, a renowned country of origin for salmon.

    A few booths selling salmon in major markets in Shenzhen, such as the Futian Farm Produce Wholesale Market and Xiangmei Market in Futian District, were unable to present any inspection and quarantine certificates for their fish, although sellers claimed to be selling imports.

    The owner of a salmon-selling booth in the Futian wholesale market wanted 60 yuan (US$9.80) per 500 grams and claimed that the fish originated from Norway.

    The only salmon seller in Xiangmei Market priced the fish at 70 yuan per 500 grams and claimed they were imported from Scotland, but the owner could not show any documents in support of this claim. He denied that he was selling smuggled salmon, but dodged a question over its place of origin.

    Insiders said sellers failed to show their salmon’s proof of import either because the fish weren’t imported from the places they were advertising or because they were smuggled into the country.

    A salmon seller surnamed Deng who has been in the trade for three years said the domestic variety of salmon is smaller than imported deep sea salmon, which usually have big heads and each weigh about 7 kilograms.

    Shenzhen customs police said the city saw few salmon smuggling cases in recent years because of tight supervision. Strict conditions under which the fish must be preserved also pose an increased challenge to smugglers, and most salmon smuggling happens in big port cities, such as Guangzhou and Shanghai, police said.

    Xu Junzhuo, an expert from the Marine Fisheries Research Institute of Zhejiang Province, said Norway is the leading exporter of salmon, followed by Chile, Canada and Australia, but that place of origin is not the only measurement of salmon’s quality, since they belong to the same family as deep sea fish and are raised in the same way.

    (Anna Zhao)