Nova Scotia seafood companies are looking east — the Far East — to net more business.

“China is a growing marketplace with a growing middle class,” said Robert Wight, chief financial officer with Clearwater Seafoods Limited Partnership, in an interview Tuesday. “We see it as a big potential market.”

The Bedford-based seafood company does about $300 million a year in annual sales globally. Chinese sales account for about 10 per cent of that total and are growing.

“It’s growing fast,” said Wight. “We don’t see that trend changing.”

Clearwater is part of a federally led trade mission to China now underway that includes more than 50 Canadian seafood companies exhibiting at the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo in Qingdao.

The expo is the largest of its kind in Asia, with exhibitors from more than 30 countries.

Clearwater has three sales offices in China and a contractual arrangement with a Chinese food processor that prepares Clearwater clams and other products for the Japanese market.

“We have a lot of feet on the ground,” said Wight.

He said Clearwater has worked long and hard to establish business relationships in China and the effort has paid off.

“It takes years to develop your brand and business in China,” he said.

Halifax’s Fisher King Seafoods Ltd., is also taking part in the seafood trade mission.

Company president Tor Conklin agreed that establishing good relationships is critical to penetrating the lucrative and growing Chinese market.

“We use the show to figure out the right people to deal with,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

Fisher King is a $100-million company that generates about 10 per cent of its revenues from China, where it exports turbot, lobster and crab and imports scallops and processed products, including ocean perch fillets.

Conklin said he hopes to increase that figure to 20 per cent in order to lessen the company’s reliance on the U.S. market, which accounts for 80 per cent of its business.

Greg Roach, associate deputy minister of fisheries and aquaculture, said Nova Scotia exports about $800 million in seafood annually, making it the province’s second largest export after natural gas.

But he said 75 per cent of that goes to the United States, making the sector vulnerable to unfavourable exchange rates and economic downturns south of the border.

“We have to expand,” he said, noting that the expo is a great way to bring buyers and sellers together in a market that is experiencing rising incomes.

Roach said there is a tremendous opportunity to market Nova Scotia lobster, the province’s top seafood export, in China as an alternative to Australian lobster in restaurants, hotels and at weddings.

Federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Keith Ashfield is hosting meetings between potential importers and exporters of Canadian seafood products at the Qingdao trade show.

“China is the top consumer and producer of fish and seafood products in the world,” he said in a news release Tuesday. “Its importance as an export market for Canada is growing rapidly.”