China’s leading port for unloading and processing squid is reporting a surge in throughput this year.
Zhoushan, located south of Shanghai, recorded a 61 percent year-on-year increase in its squid landings in the first half of 2021, according to the management bureau of the Zhoushan Distant-Water Fishery Port, which manages the port and adjacent industrial park.
More than 190,000 metric tons (MT) of squid, landed by 214 vessels operating in the Southwest Atlantic and East Pacific, has reached Zhoushan thus far in 2021. The vessels have also landed 100,000 MT of tuna, according to the release from port management.
Lou Hong, the portside manager of a major local fishery firm, Zhoushan Hui Qun Distant Water Fishery Development Co, said his company has thus far managed to prevent COVID-19 from infecting its workers and was fully operational again this spring, following China’s national lockdown in 2020.
This month, Zhoushan’s distant-water fishing vessels will cease operations in the Southwest Atlantic as part of a fishing moratorium organized by the Chinese government. But OPRAS, an Argentine campaign group, told SeafoodSource the moratorium is meaningless because it starts after the squid stocks are already exhausted following a season operated by Chinese vessels that typically runs from January to the end of June.
Photo courtesy of oceanfishing/Shutterstock
