The role of the state as both an owner and a regulator of China’s fishing companies is highlighted by a recent equity transfer deal related to a Chinese fishing firm with a large base in Ghana.
Shandong ZhongLu Fishing Co. Ltd. operates tuna purse-seine vessels out of the port of Tema, Ghana, near the capital of Accra, and claims to be China’s first distant-water operator to launch vessels targeting Atlantic Ocean tunas.
The firm’s majority shareholder, Shandong LuXin Investment Co., recently sold a 14 percent stake to another state investment group, Shandong Guo Tuo Asset Investment Management Co., for CNY 125.6 million (USD 18.1 million, EUR 15.9 million).
The “Atlantic Prince,” a major modern trawler, is one of seven owned by the Ghana-based ZhongLu subsidiary Yaw Addo Fisheries Co. and was inspected earlier this month by a delegation from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture’s Fisheries Management Bureau. China’s fishing firms in Ghana have become a focus of attention for their scale and competition with local small-scale vessels.
ZhongLu has two other subsidiaries operating in the waters of the West African nation: Laif Fisheries Co. Ltd., and Habitat Co., which is registered in Panama. A document on ZhongLu’s website credits its international expansion to the inspiration of China’s “One Belt, One Road” policy. The company “responded to the call of the party and the state, under the encouragement of the policy of going global and persisting in the development of the ocean economy.”
