Saving Seafood

China Imposes its First Closed Season for Distant-Water Fishing Fleet

June 22, 2020 — In early June, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture’s Bureau of Fisheries announced plans for two closed seasons on squid fishing in parts of the south-west Atlantic and eastern Pacific, to give two species a better chance of reproducing.

The closed seasons cover what are believed to be the main spawning grounds of the Humboldt squid, in waters to the west of Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, from July to September, and of the Argentine shortfin squid, off Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, from September to November.

This is the first time China has voluntarily imposed a closed season on the high seas. Some experts regard it as an important step forward in China’s management of distant-water fishing (DWF), and crucial for protecting the squid fishing industry. But others say the impact will be limited and that stronger oversight of fishing vessels is needed, or even a new fisheries management body specifically for squid.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

China’s seafood sector rapidly growing more efficient and valuable

January 4, 2019 — There’s a lot of data being quoted recently by China’s government to show that these are prosperous times for China’s fishermen and fish farmers.

A perusal of several past editions of the Fisheries Yearbook, an annual overview of the state of the industry produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, shows there has been a 41 percent increase in the average earnings of workers in the sector over four years.

But incomes remain low by comparison to industrial wages. Average annual incomes rose from CNY 13,039 (USD 1,900, EUR 1,675) in 2013 to CNY 18,453 (USD 2,670, EUR 2,370) in 2017, but this looks low when taking into account the fact that the minimum wage in Guangzhou is CNY 3,500 (USD 510, EUR 450) per month.

It’s thus not surprising that there has been an exodus of workers from the industry, with numbers falling from 20.65 million in 2013 to 19.31 million in 2017.

Yet productivity looks high given the scale of the increase in the value of output over the same period. Total output from fisheries went from CNY 193 billion (USD 28.1 billion, EUR 24.8 billion) in 2013 to CNY 247 billion (USD 36 billion, EUR 31.7 billion) in 2017, an increase of 27.9 percent – even though the labor force in the sector fell 6.4 percent in that period.

Taking that figure apart reveals that the bulk of the growth is coming from what the Chinese statisticians categorize as “catering, logistics, and other services” related to fisheries and seafood. This category grew 43 percent in value terms between 2013 and 2017 to CNY 678 billion (USD 98.8 billion, EUR 87.1 billion). This could reveal how the industry is shifting to less labor-intensive activities.

Read the full story at Seafood Source