State-owned Shanghai Daier Distant Water Fisheries is sending nine new vessels to African waters, joining the company’s large fleet working the waters off Mauritania and Morocco for octopus, squid, and other species.
The vessels – China’s most modern in terms of equipment and living comforts, according to a Shanghai TV report – will replace nine “old-fashioned” vessels fishing in the grounds of what used to be the Spanish fishing fleet’s backyard.
With headquarters in Shanghai’s experimental free trade zone, Shanghai Daier is a subsidiary of Shanghai Fisheries Group, which is also the mother company of another distant-water firm, Shanghai Kaichuang Marine International, which acquired Spanish tuna canner Conservas Albo in 2016.
Established in 1996 with a focus on West African fisheries, Daier had 42 vessels in the region as of 2012, according to company records. The firm has traditionally sold into the European Union and Japanese markets, but has also marketed its squid in China, with distributors including retail chain Carrefour.
Another Chinese firm, Fujian Hong Dong, is also concentrating on Mauritania, having recently invested USD 60 million (EUR 55 million) in 2018 on an expansion of its port and processing facilities in the country. However, Mauritania saw the value of its seafood exports drop last year to USD 638 million (EUR 585 million) from USD 706 million (EUR 648 million) in 2018, with volumes down from 287,500 tons to 248,000 tons.
Though Chinese distant-water fishing firms have invested in expanding their fleets in recent years, they have thus far struggled to make a profit. While Shanghai Daier is unlisted and thus doesn’t publish detailed accounts, its filings with the country’s companies office suggest the firm didn’t make a profit in 2016, 2017, or 2018. In fact, it experienced a 4.03 percent fall-off in profitability in 2018, even though its revenue rose 16.4 percent and the value of the company’s fixed assets rose a whopping 1,036 percent. But Daier has been helped by drawing on government subsidies both for fuel and for refurbishment of its fleet.
Photo courtesy of Shanghai Fisheries Group Co.
