China's fisheries output this year up 5.4 percent in volume, 15 percent in value

Fishermen will harvest 59.06 million tonnes this year, up 5.4 percent year on year, said Zhao Xingwu, head of the Bureau of Fisheries in the Ministry of Agriculture.

He was speaking at a national fisheries work meeting in Beijing.

Aquaculture will yield 43.05 million tonnes this year, up 7 percent year on year and domestic fishing will provide 14.83 million tonnes, almost the same as 2011. Finally, distant fishing will bring in 1.18 million tonnes, up 2.8 percent year on year, Zhao said.

Annual income for fishermen will average at 11,256 yuan per capita in 2012, up 12.4 percent year on year, Zhao said.

Niu Dun, vice minister of agriculture, said the government has been mapping out policies to support fisheries, including 8.01 billion yuan of investment this year to boost fishery infrastructure, Niu said.

This year fishermen have received 1.35 billion yuan in compensation for a number of oil spills that occurred in north China's Bohai Bay from June 2011. This is a historic breakthrough to explore the compensation mechanism on fisheries resources, Niu said.

Oil spills in the Penglai 19-3 oilfield in Bohai Bay have polluted over 6,200 square kilometers of water since June 2011, an area about nine times the size of Singapore. They have hit the aquatic farming industries of Liaoning and Hebei provinces.

China's distant water fleet threat to global stocks

China's growing hunger for seafood is testing relations with other countries and worrying foreign officials and scientists over the potential damage its massive fleet could do to global fishing stocks.

Chinese ships fish in both international waters and under bilateral fisheries agreement in the waters of other nations. They work for largely private firms or for themselves, and aren't generally directed by Beijing.

Official data project that China, the world's largest seafood consumer, is on track to produce more than 60 million tons of seafood by 2015, up from 53.7 million tons two years ago. Some foreign officials question Chinese catch reports and believe total production may be even higher.

Investment bank Rabobank estimates that seafood imports to China -- where consumers have for centuries considered fish beneficial to the brain -- will total $20 billion by the end of the decade from around $8 billion currently.

Beijing has big plans for expanding its fishing armada to feed that appetite, aiming to increase its long-range fishing fleet by 16% by the end of 2015 to about 2,300 ships compared with 2010. By comparison, the U.S. distant-waters fishing fleet totals around 200 ships.

China's fishing vessels are being drawn ever farther afield because overfishing has led to falling production in Asian waters, according to an essay from China's agriculture ministry.

In comparison, the ministry said, the catch from West Africa rose 14% in volume and 41% in value last year from 2010. In Mauritania alone, the catch rose 51% in volume and 66% in value over the period, it said. In Morocco, catch values rose 50% despite a smaller volume due to a shortened fishing season.

Peru, a major source of seafood for China, has slashed its global fishing quota for anchovy during the Nov. 22-Jan. 31 season by 68% to a 25-year lowbecause of depleted stocks. Anchovy is processed into fishmeal, of which Peru is the largest exporter and China the main buyer.