A major Chinese distant-water fishery company is seeking to expand from its base in Mauritania into more southerly West African state of Guinea.
A delegation from the Fuzhou Hong Dong Yuan Yang Fishing Co. and a partner firm in Mauritania, Cofrima, met with Frédéric Loua, Guinea’s minister for fisheries and aquaculture at the minister’s office recently. Up for discussion: a “partnership” between the Cofrima-Hongdong side and the Complexe Industriel de Pêche et de Commerce de Guinée (CIPECO), with the latter providing vessels for the operation, according to minister Loua’s office. It’s not clear how the vessels would be licensed or managed to operate in Guinean waters.
Hongdong has an operation in Mauritania that it claims is China’s largest overseas fishery base. Through its Mauritanian operation, it is shipping 2,500 metric tons of seafood per week to customers in the European Union and United States, company CEO Chen Zhengjie told Fujian provincial TV in late 2018. He also said his company is seeking further expansion in West Africa, and that it currently has 100 vessels in operation, most of them focused on tuna, and an additional 60 under construction.
The meeting in Guinea appears to have been backed by China’s ministry of commerce, which published a statement suggesting it had helped facilitate it through the commercial office of the Chinese embassy. Hongdong primarily supplies the E.U. and U.S. markets and has significant processing operations in Fuzhou city, the capital of Fujian Province.
