APPENDIX 5

The Present Status and Trend of Seafarming in China

I. Background

China is situated in the eastern part of Asia with an area of 9.6 million sq. km covered from the tropical through the temperate to subtemperate zone. To the east, it faces Pohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea, where there are more than 5,000 islands along the coast. The coastline of the mainland and islands adds up to 32,000 km. The area within the continental shelf of 200 meter isobath amounts to 1.5 million sq.km., many rivers such as the Yangtze, the Yellow and Pearl, etc. flow into the seas with plenty of organisms, which fertilize the sea water and create an excellent place for marine animal and plants.

Since 1978, the Government has revised the policies and implemented the policy of opening to the world and enliving domestic economy, the fishery administration has paid more attention to the proper utilization of resources and a series of measure has been taking for raising production, as a result, the yield was increased. The aquatic production of recent years is as follow:

Though China stands as the world's third largest fishery nation with a total annual fisheries production of 8.235 million MT in 1986, since its population of 1,046 billion the per capita consumption of fish is still lower than the world average. People's obtaining fish to eat is still difficult not only in inland arid area but also in coast cities.

The traditional marine fishing grounds are being exploited to the fullest, some commercial fish resources are depleted along the nearshore. The measures are being taken to protect and stablize the over exploited grounds. It is impossible and also shouldn't do to increase fish production by means of raising fishing effort.

Developing the industry of aquaculture has been made as an important fishery policy for upgrading fish production and reducing pressure on fishing resources, which is of vital significance to their restoration.

II. Present status

China has plenty of marine water along the coast of about 14,000,000 ha. within the depth of 15 M, and there are about 1,300,000 ha which could be cultivable.

Though the practice of mariculture has been vernacularly known for hundreds of years in China, however, scientificially based mariculture started only a few decades ago. In fact it is the recent solution to a series of biological problems and some problems of mariculture engineering of cultivated animal and plants, that has made China's fishery production possible to reach present level.

There are more than ten institutes involving in research work of mariculture in China. the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute is one of the earmarked. They have achieved a number of success. For instance:

• Elucidation of the developmental biology of Laminaria japonica at different life-cycle stage
• Artificial seedling-rearing of Laminaria japonica
• Cultivation & biology of Laminaria japonica
• Transplantation of Laminaria japonica to the south part of China
• Comprehensive utilization of Laminaria japonica
• Artificial seedling-rearing of Porphyra sp
• Net culture of Porphyra sp in the intertidal zone
• Artificial breeding and semi-artificial spatting of Mytilus edulis
• Artificial spatting and cage culture of Chlamys farreri

Other successes are not detailed here. These achievements have led to production increase.

Mariculture is well developed in coastal provinces, main species cultivated are:

In 1986, the annual yield of mariculture amounts to 857592 MT with devoted area of about 325,000 ha. The classified production of recent years is listed as attached table.

The Major Species Production and Cultivated Area of Mariculture in China

Area unit: ha
Yield unit: MT

Note: 1. The yield of the mussels, scallops and razor clam are with shell; hard clam, ark shell and oysters are freshmeat, kelp and purple lavers are dried weight.

2. The yield of the prawn is mainly of Penaeus orientalis, mussels is of Mytilus edulis, scallops is of Chlamy farreri, razor clam is of sinonovacula constricta, hard clam is of veneridae sp, oysters is of Crassostrea sp and Ostrea sp, Kelp is of Laminaria japonica, and lavers is of Porphyra haitenensis and Porphyra yezoensis, ark shell is of Anadara sp.

III. Trend

Mariculture is planned as the main means of increasing nearshore fisheries production and be expected for production of high value species both for domestic consumption and export. Major research and development efforts in this area are given supporting by the Government.

Mariculture production will be expected to increase at an annual rate of more than 10% during the period 1986–1990 to reach 1.2 million MT in 1990. The area devoted to mariculture will amount to 600,000 ha.

Other than cultivated species, some species of fish, shellfish, shrimp and seaweed such as silver salmon (O. kisutch), sea perch (Lates calcarifer), tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon), giant oyster (Crassostrea gigas), sea mustard (Undaria japonica) are being cultivated on experimental basis. Emphysis will be laid on the exportable high value species. Even though there are many cultivable species in marine water, for the time only a limited number have come into commercial production.

In order to utilise the vast resources of potentially cultivatable marine animal and plants, a polyculture research by introducing and integrating new group of species into the production system is considered as an object.

Techniques, investment, feed and seedling for some species are the main problems confronted the China's mariculture. Significant progress will depend on solving these problems. Except domestic efforts, introducing some techniques, seedling and investment, or collaborating with foreign partners are the possible ways. The prospects have a bright future.