A Chinese fishing firm has sent two newly-built vessels to fishing grounds off Liberia at a time of tension and a stalled fishing base project backed by the Chinese government.
Dalian Guo He Zhong Li Yu Ye Fishing Co. has sent the Guo Ji 836 and the Guoji 837 trawlers to replace two aging vessels in its Monrovia base, which is focused on tuna.
The two new vessels were built by Shandong Huang Hai Shipbuilding Co. and each has capacity to carry 13 tons of refrigerated product per day.
Despite the additions, China’s increasing ambition to increase its catch in West African waters and to establish a network of fishing ports appears to have run aground in Liberia.
A plan to build a “China-Liberia Comprehensive Fishing Base” seems to have stalled amid a spate of illegal fishing cases taken by Liberian authorities against Chinese fishing firms in the past year.
A 10-square-kilometer site, including port and cold-chain facilities as well as “tourist facilities,” was touted by Zhang Yue, the former Chinese ambassador to Monrovia, in Chinese Foreign Ministry statements prior to his finishing his Liberia posting in February 2018.
Liberia’s National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority (NFAA) last year fined several Chinese vessels including reefers for under-declaring catches.
The Africa Zhong Sheng Hai fishing company was in June fined for secretly offloaded huge consignments of catches from its vessels at the Freeport of Monrovia without a license.
Liberia has been seeking to encourage investment in its fisheries sector but has been criticized for enabling illegal fishing through its loosely-regulated flagging service for vessels from third countries including China.
