China’s Big Plan: Everyone – well, everyone who reads the government-run news – is going to be talking about ‘shi san wu’ or 13-5: That’s shorthand for the Thirteenth Five Year Plan, which China is developing and will enact next year. The Leninist-style blueprint sets the country’s economic and social policy priorities and will be in place until the 14th Five Year Plan in 2021.
The outgoing plan set targets on energy efficiency and carbon reduction. The upcoming 13th Five Year Plan is likely to include additional measures on expanding China’s seafood production, as well as conservation of agricultural land and increasing yields from this land: All of which will mean more competition for anyone securing land for aquaculture plots. Also interesting will be the plans to establish name and shame and heavier fines on persistent polluters (many of them large state owned industries) who continue to render large amounts of the Chinese seashore unsuitable for aquaculture.
