TOKYO (AP) — This tuna is worth savouring: It cost nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

A bluefin tuna caught off northeastern Japan fetched a record 56.49 million yen, or about $736,000, Thursday in the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. The price for the 269-kilogram (593-pound) tuna beat last year’s record of 32.49 million yen.

The price translates to 210,000 yen per kilogram, or $1,238 per pound — also a record, said Yutaka Hasegawa, a Tsukiji market official.

Though the fish is undoubtedly high quality, the price has more to do with the celebratory atmosphere that surrounds the first auction of the year.

The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., a sushi restaurant chain, said he wanted to “liven up Japan” and help it recover from last year’s devastating tsunami and economic stagnation, according to media reports.

The tuna was caught off Oma, in Aomori prefecture and just north of the coast that was battered by the March 11 tsunami.