A Chinese state-owned port and reefer operator, the Shidao Group Co, has unloaded 9,000 metric tons (MT) of seafood from what it claims is the world’s biggest fish-transportation vessel.
The Hua Xiang 8 – which is also owned by the Shidao Group – docked in Shidao New Port outside Rongcheng city in recent days with fish gathered by China’s fleet of distant-water vessels.
Based in Rongcheng, Shandong province, a key seafood-processing region in China, the Shidao Group appears to be benefitting from preferential treatment from local authorities in handling COVID-19 checks on inbound seafood.
Local authorities went to great lengths to facilitate the return of the Hua Xiang 8, which is 150 meters in length and is effectively owned by the local government, which also operates the port and the stringent checks on imported seafood for signs of COVID-19 infections on packaging.
“In order to ensure the smooth return of distant-water catches, the local Ocean Development Bureau has built a platform for enterprises to transfer fish caught at sea in terms of joint inspection and exit of fishing vessels, voyage planning, and entry quarantine,” a statement from the city government noted. “[Rongcheng is] China’s most important distant-water seafood logistics hub and biggest squid-processing center. Seventeen transport vessels from Rongcheng travel regularly to the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans and bring back approximately 2.4 million MT each year in order to help supply China’s seafood-processing needs.”
Rongcheng is one of three Chinese cities (the others are Zhoushan in Zhejiang province and Fuzhou in Fujian province) to be given the status of National Distant-Water Base by the national government. Recently the city of Weihai, which is adjacent to Rongcheng, stated it also wished to build a distant-water fishery base.
Rongcheng has stated an ambition to further grow its squid-processing industry despite signs of overcapacity in terms of factory space. Cuttlefish and squid make up 72 percent of landings from China’s distant-water fleet, while tuna makes up 15.3 percent of those landings.
Rongcheng Xinlong Aquatic Products Co., which is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, appeared in a report issued in 2021 naming publicly traded fishing companies with connections to illegal fishing. Published in a Planet Tracker report titled “Do You IUU?”, the report names three publicly listed firms whose vessels appear on the Combined IUU Fishing Vessel List, a consolidated listing of all the main IUU vessel lists established by regional fisheries management organizations. The other Chinese firm on the list was CNFC Overseas Fisheries.
Photo courtesy of Shidao Group
