China-based, state-owned Guoxin Development Group – which also uses the English name Qingdao Conson Development Group – launched its “Guoxin Number 1” from Qingdao harbor this week, as new information indicates consumer confidence in China has hit its lowest level in decades.
Touted as a technological breakthrough strong enough to resist tycoons, the company said it is the “world’s first 100,000 ton smart aquaculture vessel.” The first of 50 vessels, the company said the new design will allow it to dramatically and rapidly expand production of high-end species like yellow croaker, grouper, and salmon.
Built by the China State Shipbuilding Corp., the vessel measures 250 meters long, 50 meters wide, and contains 15 tanks fitted with feeding systems designed to exchange water constantly as the vessel moves at sea.
During a launch event featured on Shandong TV, Qingdao Conson Development Group Deputy General Manager Dong Shaoguang said the vessel’s breakthrough technology is the non-stop water exchange between the tanks and the sea, making the water environment on the ship “enclosed and controllable.”
Dong said the tanks aboard the Guoxin 1 will feature three to five times the density of fish of traditional cages, with growing cycles 25 percent shorter. The ship can finish 3,700 metric tons (MT) of fish per year, with the first batch of yellow croakers raised expected to be on the market by the fall of 2022.
The launch of the ship comes as Guoxin faces potentially weaker demand for high end species as China continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s consumer confidence index dropped to 86.7 in April, down from 113.2 in March, according to multiple Chinese economic databases citing new figures from the National Bureau of Statistics.
The number is worrying given 100 is the borderline between optimism and pessimism, with anything above 100 signifying optimism – and anything below signifying consumers losing confidence in the economy. The April figure, cited in the Shanghai-based Securities Daily, suggests the weakest level of consumer confidence since the data was first collected in 1991.
Another sign of the growing anxiety about China’s economic prospects. At least 138 Chinese cities have unveiled measures intended to prop up the real estate market after residential home sales nationwide dropped 32.2 percent in the first four months of the year compared to the same period last year.
Guoxin’s plans for its new vessel are unclear. Dong, in his remarks to Shandong TV, didn’t mention Atlantic salmon, despite Guoxin previously saying it planned to farm salmon on the ship.
Guoxin, which absorbed the salmon farming assets of Oriental Ocean as well as the leading Chinese feed and tilapia player Baiyang, said it wants to ultimately produce 200,000 MT of seafood – including salmon and yellow croaker – per year on fifty 100,000 MT vessels similar to the Guoxin Number 1. Two more similar vessels are due for delivery by March 2024.
Photo courtesy of Guoxin Development Group
