China tuna firm boasts ‘record’ catches in Pacific waters lured from US skipjack fleet

Leading Chinese tuna firm Zhejiang Ocean Family has boasted record tuna catches by its fleet based in the West Pacific. An Ocean Family (also known as Dayang Shi Jia) statement praised its ‘Xin Shiji No 77’ ultra-low temperature longliner for “breaking a company record” with a 12 ton cargo of tuna (the company didn’t give a timeline for this catch) while the company’s new purse seine vessel ‘Xin Shiji 111’ captured 220 tons of tuna worth about CNY 2 million since commencing work earlier this year. The tuna were caught in the exclusive economic zone of Kiribati, a Pacific Island of 100,000 inhabitants formerly ruled by Britain.

“Recently the Ocean Family tuna fishing fleets is frequently delivering good news,” said the Ocean Family statement which coincided with a visit to the company headquarters by senior Chinese officials. The “technical performance of new ships” was credited for a May catch of 400 tons of tuna caught by the firm’s purse seine ‘Xin Shiji 112’ vessel in Kiribati waters, according to Ocean Family, which claims in its statements that it’s the biggest tuna canner and seafood processor in China.

China scored a coup last year when it secured fishing rights from Kiribati in a secretive deal which effectively forced US vessels out. Governments of the 17 members of the Pacific Island Forum Fisheries Agency, which included New Zealand and Kiribati, and the United States had settled a tuna deal in Pacific waters for 2015 under which the US would pay US$90 million to allow US flagged purse seine vessels to fish 8300 days in the region in 2015. But Kiribati offered only 300 days or 7.5 days (at US$7500 a day) for each American boat rather than several thousand days as expected.

Over 40 American boats focused on skipjack tuna were operating in Kiribati’s 3.5 million square kilometre exclusive economic zone alongside large numbers of vessels from Australia and New Zealand – most of these have reportedly left Kiribati waters since fishing for a short number of days is regarded as non-feasible (less so for Chinese vessels whose fuel is heavily subsidised by the Chinese government).
Yet the Ocean Family ebullience contrasts with a report by the China Fishery Association which this week posted a news report of a recent conference on Pacific tuna fisheries and warned of a “disastrous” outlook for “endangered” tuna stocks in the waters.

Operating factories in the cannery port hub of Ningbo (Zhejiang province), Zhejiang Ocean Family has become well acquainted with tuna since it has a separate co-operation deal with Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi to process and distribute the latter’s seafood for the Chinese market, where demand for sushi-style cuisine continues to grow rapidly.

Earlier this year Ocean Family announced a “strategic partnership” with Womai.com, one of China’s leading ecommerce sites. The new deal has the potential to “shock the whole industry” and will bring “new vitality” to China’s seafood sector, Ocean Family founder and CEO Yue Xiang told journalists at a lavish press conference with sushi served to media.

Hangzhou-based Ocean Family is conducting processing and packaging for Womai though the deal appears to be focused on imported seafood, including tuna but also shrimp, crab, abalone and lobster.

Womai is owned by the giant state-run Cofco Corp, which formerly held the monopoly on imports of grains and other foodstuffs into China. Ocean Family meanwhile is headquartered in Hangzhou, the wealthy east coast city also home to the headquarters of Alibaba, the e-commerce giant that many credit with revolutionizing e-commerce in China with its B2B site Alibaba and B2C site Taobao.