China’s latest effort to cash in on rising demand for sushi was marked by a ceremony recently in the city of Hunchun to celebrate the release of 800,000 salmon seedlings into the Tumen River, in an area straddling China and neighbouring North Korea and Russia.
The fish will spend a period of time in the protected area of the Tumen estuary before entering the Sea of Japan in the north Pacific, according to a statement from the Jilin Water Resources Department, the state authority overseeing water in northerly Jilin province.
Building up a fisheries industry will help the proliferation of biological resources in the Tumen River and estuary, improve the region’s water and promote international cooperation,” according to the Jilin statement. To feed those goals, more than two million salmon fry and 3.5 million Chinese mitten crabs have been released in in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture People's Government of Jilin Province.
Less industrialised and polluted than northern China, North Korea also has sought in recent years to build a salmon breeding industry, with an eye to export to China and Japan.
