Authorities in Zhoushan, one of China’s largest fishing ports, are reporting a big rise in the port’s receipt of distant-water catches in 2018.
The city’s fishing companies caught 491,000 metric tons (MT) of seafood in international waters last year, up 28.5 percent year-on-year.
The volume of the city’s output of seafood grew 7.1 percent to 1.79 million MT, which includes the port’s international catch, though it’s not clear if the data incorporates the catch landed and processed overseas by the province’s 44 distant-water fishing companies.
Regardless, the total suggests distant-water catches make up a big portion of the overall catch. Zhoushan authorities in January announced the 44 locally-based firms, which include the state-owned China Agricultural Development Zhoushan Long Distance Fishing Industry Co Ltd., had upped their catch 6.3 percent in volume terms to 526,000 MT, and 5 percent in value terms to CNY 6.3 billion (USD 939 million, EUR 829.8 million). The percentage of the catch brought back to Zhejiang, at 463,000 MT, was up 5.4 percent on the 2017 figure, according to the statement from the local Ocean and Fisheries Bureau.
While production is up, several Zhoushan fishing vessels have become enmeshed in international scandals in recent years for potentially fishing illegally. In one of the most high-profile cases, the Zhoushan Hua Li Distant Water Fishery Co.-owned trawler “Hua Li 8” was seized in Indonesia last year on a warrant issued by Argentina, which accused the vessel’s operators of illegal fishing.
