Vice Minister
Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
We have the honour to host the Third Advisory Committee Meeting of NACA in Wuxi, China. On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries of the People's Republic of China, I congratulate you on the successful convening of the Meeting and extend my warm welcome and cordial greetings to all the participants.
Being one of the countries in the world that have most abundant inland water resources, China has a total water surface area of 20 million ha. and possesses favourable natural conditions to develop freshwater fisheries. The labouring people in China have traditional experience and techniques of fish farming, which can be traced back to ancient times. The People's Republic of China has made much progress in freshwater fisheries since its founding more than 30 years ago. The production reached 1.56 million tons in 1982, and increase of more than 3-fold over the initial post-liberation period. Particularly with the impetus of implementing the guiding principle of national economic adjustment and the rural economic policies, the production increased by nearly 50% in the past four years. Such a rate of development has not been seen for many years.
At present, the freshwater fish farming in China has great potentials. Only 57% of water surface area suitable for culture has been utilized. In terms of fish production per unit area, in technologically advanced areas, the average yield per ha. can reach 2,500–3,000 kg. in large area of a province, 4,000–4,500 kg. in a country and more than 7,500 kg. in high-yielding units. But the average yield per ha. is less than 750 kg. in many areas.
Based on China's experience, the development of freshwater fisheries can vigorously make up for the loss of marine fisheries production resulted from the protection of resources. It is a good way to dispose the rural manpower and a major channel to bring about a prosperous rural economy and to increase the income of farmers as well. The Chinese Government attaches great significance to solve problems in the supply of aquatic products and to improve the living standard of the people. We intend to bring every force into play, to fully utilize various water resources with aquaculture being put first and integrated with proliferation, planting and catching, to adopt correct policies and measures and to strive to hit the target of 4 or 5 million tons of freshwater fish produced annually by the end of 1980s or a little bit more time.
It is very gratifying to note that since its establishment, NACA has done much useful work for the development of freshwater fisheries, for the improvement of people's nutrition status and for the increase of farmers' income. It plays an active role in strengthening technical exchanges among nations in the Asia-Pacific region, and in developing regional aquaculture and enhancing friendship between the peoples of different countries. We think that the project should win high praise. We believe that the activities of the Network will certainly be further strengthened and its contributions will be even greater through summing up and exchange of experience and formulation of a new programme by the Third ADCOM Meeting.
The Regional Lead Centre in China was established in 1979. Its facilities still need to be improved, and research and training staff and work experience are inadequate. Although it is under such circumstances, three training courses have been completed and some of research activities have been conducted, and some achievement have been obtained. We would like to take active measures to gradually beef up the force and increase the facilities. We will collaborate closely with FAO and UNDP to make the Centre more effective and contribute our share to the development of freshwater fisheries in developing countries.
You will have an opportunity to visit some of our fish farms. I hope that you may give us your comments and advices and pass on your good experience to us. Let us learn from each other, improve our work together, make freshwater fish farming in a more scientific way and contribute towards improving the nutrition status of all peoples and bringing better economic results to the farmers of all countries.
Energetic support and many facilities have been provided by the People's Governments of Jiangsu Province and Wuxi City for this Meeting. Here, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to them.
Now, I declare the Third Advisory Committee Meeting of NACA open and wish it every success.
Thank you.
