Most expensive auctioned tuna in Japan
Bluefin tuna fish worth 56.49 million yen at Tsukiji market.
Species of bluefin bought 56.49 million yen at the Tsukiji market
TOKYO: Bluefin tuna fish caught in waters off northeastern Japan proved invaluable after a sale at a price of 56.49 million yen or USD 736,000 in the first auction session for 2012 at the Tsukiji market here yesterday.
The price of tuna that weighed 269 kilograms over last year’s sales record priced 32.49 million yen.
This means that, at the price, it is worth 210,000 yen per one kilogram or USD 1,238 per 0.45 kilogram, also a new record, said Officer Tsukiji Market, Yutaka Hasegawa.
At the same time, although the tuna was not denied a high quality, the purchase price actually more due to the pleasant atmosphere of the first auction this year.
Winner of the tuna auction, the President of the Firm Kiyomura Co., Kiyoshi Kimura, a sushi restaurant chain, said he wanted to create something more cheerful in Japan and help the country recover from the effects of the tsunami hit last year to cripple the economy, according to the media.
Tuna caught off the coast of the OMA in Aomori district, located on the north coast of the worst hit by the tsunami, March 11, 2011.
Bluefin tuna is valuable because the fat red meat. The best slices of fatty fin tuna is called ‘o-toro’ here can be sold at 2,000 yen a piece at a sushi bar here.
While appearing with faces on television, Kimura said, he wants to continue to fish in Japan and are not owned foreign buyers.
The winner bid last year was Hong Kong entrepreneurs, Richi Cheng, who runs a network-based Itamae Sushi side and Japanese restaurants in the district of Giza here.
Japanese people consume 80 percent of the bluefin tuna caught in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific, the most preferred species for sushi consumer.
Japanese fishermen, however, is facing pressure to tighten rules for tuna fishing is depleting the supply of species around the world.
In November 2010, members of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna voted to reduce the quota of bluefin tuna fishing in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean to about four per cent from 13,500 to 12,900 tons per annum.
It also agreed on measures to improve enforcement bluefin tuna quotas. The decision was criticized hard by environmental groups claiming bluefin tuna fishing be suspended temporarily or terminated.
