On April 18th, at Zhoushan Shenjiamen port, after completing all preparation work for voyage, New Century 112, Ocean Family’s new-built (update) large scale purse seining tuna fishing vessel, starts the voyage, with the whistle. She will go to the sea area of Western and Central Pacific Ocean, beginning the brand new deep sea fishing journey as the first distant sea voyage. The new fishing vessel is the latest type of the fishing vessel, with the biggest holding capacity, on the world. The putting into operation of the vessel represents the level of modernization and internationalization of ocean fishery facility of China, further strengthening company’s ocean fishery fishing capability and efficiency, and meanwhile undertaking own responsibilities and have own contributions to realize the marine strategy of the country and increase the level of food safety.
Tuna is one kind oceanic highly migratory fish which has very high economic value and nutrition value. The consistent increase of the catch of purse seining fishing vessels during recent years has attracted the high attention of international community. In order to maintain the sustainable utilization of the tuna resource, the international tuna fishery management organizations and Pacific island countries, on the one hand, deploy management measures such as vessel day scheme, fishing closure, and etc.; on the other hand, strictly control the number of purse seining tuna fishing vessels: the old purse seining tuna fishing vessels can only be replaced by the new ones, almost forbidding the increase of the number of purse seining tuna fishing vessels. This time, Ocean Family “updates” 2 large-scale purse seining tuna fishing vessels, by obeying this rule. Due to the scarcity of the resource and constraints of the international management system, technics, monetary, and etc., there are only 10 purse seining tuna fishing vessels, with Chinese nationality, on the world. And Ocean Family has 2 of them, occupying 1/5 of the figure.
Ocean Family is mainly engaged in businesses such as ocean fishery, the processing of aquatic products, import & export trading and marketing high-end aquatic products on the Chinese market. The company owns 3 ocean fishery fishing fleets: the fishing fleet, which has 18 large-scale super-frozen longline tuna fishing vessels, is the largest super-frozen fishing fleet in China, in terms of the scale, occupying 13% of the number of Chinese longline tuna fishing vessels; 2 large-scale purse seining tuna fishing vessels occupy 2 of 10 of large-scale purse seining tuna fishing vessels in China; 9 large-scale squid fishing vessels, 8 of them have fishing operation in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Argentina, occupying 70% of the number of Chinese squid fishing vessels which have the fishing operation in Argentina. The annual ocean fishery catch of Ocean Family exceeds 35,000 tons.
Undoubtedly, the marine economy has become the powerful engine to drive the development of the economy of China. At the inshore of China, due to the fishery agreements such as China-Japan fishery agreement, China-Korea fishery agreement and etc., the fishing field is shrinking, fishermen’ income is decreasing, and the loss of the fishery industry is increasing. All above factors have influenced the social stability at fishery areas of coastal areas of China. Ocean Family’s ocean fishery business has had practical effects on solving the employment issue of fishermen. Mr. Zengyuexiang, the general manager of Ocean Family, says: can only the operation of purse seining tuna fishing directly help the employment of near 100 fishermen and drive the relevant industries to increase job opportunities of relevant industries. In the meantime, the development of large-scale purse seining tuna fishing operation can release the pressure on inshore fishery resource, optimize the industry structure of ocean fishery, fit the demands of the new marine management system and the international market, win shares of the utilization of fishery resource on the high sea for China, and stimulate the development of Chinese ocean fishery to higher level, better structure, and stronger competitiveness.
The construction cost of New Century 112, which starts the voyage at Shenjiamen port, is close to 0.16 billion RMB. New Century 112 has the latest type of the fishing vessel and largest holding capacity in the world: with the length of 75.338m, breadth of 13.6m, engine power of 3600HP, more than 15 sea miles/hour highest speed, gross tonnage of 1730t and the biggest fish hold capacity of 1200 tons, integrating functions of processing, fresh-preservation and transpiration into one. The new vessel has quite high level of automation: the brailing facility, which is composed of more than 20 medium or high hydraulic winches, can be remotely operated by only one sailor; also a helideck. The annual catch capacity of the vessel is near 8,000 tons, almost doubling the capacity of the old vessel.
Why should we spend so much cost to update fishing vessels? Mr. Luguanqiu says: ocean fishery is a capital intensive, technology intensive and also labor intensive industry, requiring relative high requirements for capital and technology as well as experienced crew. All above factors once caused the ocean fishery to be dominated by developed countries. Right now, Chinese economy has grown to be the export-oriented economy which highly relies on the marine, demanding to defend and exploit the maritime rights in the sea area beyond China’s jurisdiction. Based on the foundation which has been accumulated over the years, the enterprise now has been capable of, through such ways, participating in the higher level competition for marine resources. This is to undertake our own responsibilities and have our own contribution to develop China to be a powerful marine state and increase the level of food safety.
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