深海帝王蟹从捕捞到上市，总共需要几天？

早晨七点，位于中国东北吉林省小城珲春的国门打开，一辆辆满载鲜活俄罗斯帝王蟹的货车从闸口鱼贯而入。珲春位于延边朝鲜族自治州的图们江下游，距离日本海15公里，近海却不靠海，周边分布着多个俄罗斯优质港口。

Previously, if Chinese consumers wanted to enjoy some Russian king crabs, it would take a long time to transport the crabs through South Korean or Japanese ports, resulting in long waits and high labor costs, and the crabs were not fresh enough. Now, live king crabs caught in the deep seas off Russia the night before can be shipped to Hunchun the next day and distributed to various regions in China.

The city, which achieved a breakthrough by focusing on the seafood trade, has vigorously developed its marine economy and has been approved as the only national marine economic development demonstration zone that is not directly coastal. Hunchun has been implementing a strategy of utilizing nearby ports for seaborne trade.

Wang Jinyuan, 32, is the head of Jinyuan Fisheries in Hunchun. He started working in the king crab business five years ago. The crabs transported to Hunchun are packed in boxes containing seawater from fishing areas in Russia, thus making sure they are mostly alive and fresh.

After the king crabs arrive in Hunchun, Wang will go to the site with other merchants to get their products and some seawater. After returning to his store, he immediately packs the king crabs in foam boxes, filled with seawater and sufficient oxygen, and send to customers outside the region through SF Express. Local customers or tourists visiting Hunchun can directly purchase and pick up the crabs from stores.

In the past few years, the trade relationship between China and Russia has become increasingly close. With the withdrawal of some European and US companies from the Russian market since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, China is expected to further fill the market demand in Russia. In 2022, total bilateral trade volume between China and Russia reached $190.27 billion, up 29.3 percent year-on-year, said the Ministry of Commerce.

Recently, a batch of packaged self-heating hot pot products were shipped to Tokyo from a port in the Jinpu New Area of Dalian, Liaoning province in Northeast China. This marks the first-ever seaborne shipment of Chinese-made self-heating hot pot products.

Previously, self-heating hot pot products were only exported as individual ingredients and heating packs, which were shipped separately from various ports in China and then assembled at their destinations.

However, the cost of assembly in Japan is much higher than China due to higher labor costs.

A company based in Wafangdian, Dalian used to solely provide part of the ingredients such as beef. Now, vegetables, soup base, vermicelli, pickled vegetables, tableware and heating packs are all transported from qualified suppliers across the country to Dalian, where they are assembled and exported later.

One of the biggest challenges in exporting a self-heating hot pot is the heating pack itself, a critical component that could release flammable gases when it comes in contact with water.

The heating pack is classified as a dangerous export item. But, since there are clear international shipping rules for heating packs, so it is not a problem to ship them separately.

There are no clear regulations on how to transport the assembled self-heating hot pot products, which contain both food and dangerous chemicals.

Staff from the Dalian section of the China (Liaoning) Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Dalian dangerous goods transport research center of the Liaoning maritime safety administration specified the international general safety transportation conditions for the product and issued the first domestic identification report on the safe transport conditions of self-heating hot pot products by ocean shipping.

Since Japan’s Customs clearance requirements for food and hazardous chemicals are particularly strict, customs clearance of this batch of overall packaged goods was completed just by press time.

随着生产和物流成本的显著降低，由此产生的价格优势将进一步增强自热火锅产品在国际市场上的竞争力。该公司正计划向韩国和东南亚出口自热火锅产品。

With the significant reduction of production and logistics costs, the resulting price advantages will further enhance the competitiveness of self-heating hot pot products in the international market. The company is currently working to export self-heating hot pot products to South Korea and Southeast Asian countries.

记者：朱雯骞 刘明太 张小敏