A suite of subsidies is being offered by the city of Rui’an, a suburb of the major port of Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province, with the goal of expanding the region’s offshore aquaculture industry.
The city’s “Support Plan for Developing the Fishery Production” includes 10 types of subsidies. Individual farmers can claim 60 percent of the cost of investment in “intelligent and digital” aquaculture facilities – up to a limit of CNY 500,000 (USD 80,000, EUR 65,000) per application.
The local government is offering subsidies for bait-throwing machines, net-washing machines, net-lifting machines, and waste-collection devices, up to 50 percent of the overall cost and to a maximum CNY 300,000 (USD 48,000, EUR 39,000) for the largest (90-meter circumference) cages. It’s also offering help with paying for 30 percent of compound feed costs and seafood freezing equipment, which is eligible for a 60 percent coverage of cost up to a maximum of CNY 1 million (USD 160,000, EUR 130,000). The city’s “top 20 leading agricultural enterprises” can apply for subsidies of up to 20 percent off the cost of new capital equipment purchased to modernize their production facilities, according to a bulletin posted by the municipality.
Separately, as part of government-planned effort to increase production of sea-water crab on the costal mudflats, it has offered to pay CNY 240 (USD 38.40, EUR 31.20) for each mu (0.16 of an acre) of aquaculture ponds developed within the municipality.
And a welfare program aimed at reducing fishing pressure in domestic waters will offer 60-year-old “traditional fishermen” a monthly payment of CNY 300 (USD 48, EUR 39), though eligibility requirements stipulate the recipients must be full-time fishermen who have not contracted agricultural land. Under the national census, rural households are classified as “farmer” or “fisher.”
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