A major Chinese shipbuilder and marine equipment firm has signed a contract with a Norwegian company to build “intelligent” deep-sea aquaculture platforms off the East China coast.
CIMC Raffles Engineering and Ocean Saver SA will work together to construct 30 -to 100-meter-deep cages to produce species including blowfish, yellow croaker and grouper, according to CIMC general manager Wang Jian Zhong.
Now a wholly owned subsidiary of China International Marine Containers, CIMC Raffles Engineering was originally established by Singaporean investors. Specializing in offshore and marine fabrication of vessels and worksites, Yantai CIMC Raffles Shipyard is a shipbuilding company in Yantai, Shandong Province. It is one of three firms operated by CIMC Raffles Offshore Ltd., and is located at the confluence of the Bohai Bay and the Yellow Sea, near to the key seafood markets of Korea and Japan.
China’s government has in the past two years stressed the need to expand off-shore aquaculture or mariculture in order to bolster supplies of seawater fishes in China’s overfished waters.
