06.01.2003

japantoday > business

Tuna fetches Y6.38 mil at Tsukiji's 1st auction for 2003

Monday, January 6, 2003 at 06:00 JST
TOKYO — A single tuna sold for 6.38 million yen at the year's first auction Sunday at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, up from 2.80 million yen last year but far lower than a record 20.2 million yen fetched in 2001.

A 228-kilogram blue fin tuna caught of Oma, Aomori Prefecture, snagged the highest price out of 3,600 tunas lying on the wet auction floor at the world's biggest wholesale fish market run by Tsukuji Uoichiba Co.

"Given the bad economy, there was no customary celebration market (of bidding at extraordinary high prices)," said one middleman.

The auction kicked off shortly before 5 a.m. after market officials conveyed their New Year's greetings in a ceremony under a banner that read "Congratulations for the Year's First Cargo Arrivals."

"The environment is becoming increasingly severe under deflation," one official said. "Let's start by cheering."

The tuna came not only from Japanese waters but also from other areas, including Indonesia, the Maldives and Turkey.

One big tuna can supply up to 6,000 people with the most popular types of sushi or sashimi. (Kyodo News)

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