Bluefin tuna sold for $320,000 in Tokyo's first Tsukiji sale of 2018

A giant tuna was sold on Friday for a whopping 36.45 million yen ($323,300) during this year's first tuna auction at the world famous Tsukiji fish market here.

The bluefin tuna, weighing 405 kg and sourced from Aomori prefecture, was bought at a per kilo price of 90,000 yen by Yukitaka Yamaguchi, an intermediary for the wholesale fish merchant firm Yamayuki, reports Efe news.

At a normal daily auction at Tsukiji market, a similar tuna would sell at less than 10,000 yen per kilo but the prices jump in the first sale of the year.

The all-time record stands at 155.4 million yen ($1.37 million), paid in 2013 by Kiyoshi Kimura, owner of a well known chain of sushi restaurants.

Kimura, who has made a habit of making the biggest bids in the New Year auction over the years, on Friday bought a bluefin tuna weighing 190 kg for 30.4 million yen, at a staggering 160,000 yen per kilo.

The auction on Friday would be the last New Year auction held on the current premises of Tsukiji market, which opened in 1935 in Chuo district on the banks of the Sumida river. It will be relocated to Toyosu, a nearby artificial island, on October 11.

The market's transfer was approved in 2001.