Our last day in China started with 7am breakfast meeting with the IFFO USA members to discuss the process of renewing approvals for plants and at-sea processing boats to export to China. Maggie Xu and I met AQSIQ, the agency responsible for approving exporters to China, earlier in the week in Beijing and passed on the latest position. It was also good to have Mr Wu from the USA Embassy present to co-ordinate the communications via official channels.

Breakfast over, it was time to go to the conference hall with around 400 delegates waiting for our annual updates. As usual, Maggie chaired the session, opening with a welcome to everyone before calling me to the stage for my presentation on global supply, demand and trends – thanks again to Enrico Bachis for his help with the slides. I was followed by Mr Diego Balarezo of Hayduk, Peru with a great presentation on the Anchoveta fishery, Dr Wang Hulang from Guangdong Evergreen Feed Co on formulations of feeds in China, and Mr Zhuang Shuiquan of KingMax Trade Co with an analysis of price and volume correlations over the last ten years.

When we came back from the teabreak, there was a very moving request, scheduled at the last minute, from Patrick Chang, a young man with a Peruvian and Chinese background. Patrick showed a video of the damage caused by the recent extreme rainfall in Peru and asking for donations to a disaster fund for the Peruvian floods. You couldn’t not be impressed with the sincerity of a young man prepared to stand up in front of a large audience and ask for help to be given – IFFO will be making a donation. 

All the speakers were called up to the stage for a Q&A session, taking questions on production forecasts, formulation changes and other points arising from the presentation, followed by a final sum up and close from Mr Li Qiang, the Chairman of JCI Consulting.

Translation headphones were taken off, hands were shaken, business cards exchanged and a breath of relief exhaled that another event had been delivered. As usual, I asked IFFO members what they thought of the event – we will be arranging a proper survey but initial indications were “pleased”. Thanks to all the IFFO members who travelled to the event – I hope you found it useful.

For Maggie and me, there was lunch with our co-organisers from JCI to review the event, then an hour to pack and checkout before heading to the airport. Job done.