Comprising anything between 900 and 3,000 vessels catching 3-4 million tonnes of fish, China’s distant water fleets (DWFs) represent serious competition and a challenge for the EU’s own distant-water fishing activities and are also undermining the good governance of fisheries stocks in the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of various countries in the global south, according to a new report prepared for the European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries (PECH).
The top-level study, “Role and impact of China on world fisheries and aquaculture”, advises that China’s DWFs operate in “hot spots” off the coasts of Ecuador, West Africa (Mauritania and Senegal), the east coast of Madagascar, around Mauritius and around the east and southern coasts of the Solomon Islands.
It states that while EU fleets fishing in these EEZs strictly adhere to the fishing agreements and local legislations regulating their operations, Chinese and other distant water fleets don’t observe such regulations. It also highlights that subsidies are an issue, with Chinese fleets operating in Mauritania and Senegal receiving high levels of aid from their government, while there seems to be little visible information on subsidies for those fleets operating in Madagascar, Mauritius, Ecuador and the Solomon Islands.
Sizeable subsidies
The report’s researchers found China provides around US$ 2.4 billion annually to its distant water fleets operating in the EEZs of other countries, and $68 million to its distant water fleets operating in the high seas. Moreover, they determined that most of the harmful subsidies provided by China go to the DWFs that operate across the coast of African countries.
It’s also suggested the large number of vessels in the Chinese DWFs, and the various techniques that enable these vessels to “go dark”, increase the chances of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing infractions.
This happens, the study said, in spite of attempts by most of the focus countries studied to mitigate such violations by adhering to international initiatives. The continuous lack of necessary data in reporting such infractions hinders international mitigation initiatives, it added.
“The main consequence of illegal fishing is the direct competition with legal fishing at all scales and along the entire supply chain, which represents a form of unfair competition for the EU and other relevant stakeholders,” offers the report.
It said the unreported industrial catch of Chinese DWFs subject to illicit trade was on average 65% of the unreported DWF catch and 17% of the total DWF catch between 1980 and 2019, and also that the illicit trade volumes grew from about 9,000 tonnes a year in the 1980s to 15,568 tonnes in the 2010s. The largest number of incidents were reported in Ecuador (35%), the Philippines (25%) and Mauritania (13%).
Almost half (46%) of the incidents were committed by Chinese squid jiggers, 38% by longliners, 15% by purse seiners and the rest by trawlers.
Feeding Chinese aquaculture
In terms of consequences for the EU’s fishing fleets, the study highlights the impact on local communities in host countries; the reduced access to resources; the unfair competition and the reduced availability of exported products.
It states that China’s demand for feed ingredients for its 16-million-tonne, €52 billion aquaculture industry is a major contributor to the issue. The country is the world’s largest importer of fishmeal, and this has been a growing problem for West African countries like Senegal, where the small fish that were traditionally consumed by the local population are now being diverted to fishmeal factories and exported to China.
According to the researchers’ findings, in 2012, China was importing 30% of the total traded fishmeal volume, and provisional data for 2021 suggests this figure is now approaching 50%. When China’s domestic production is included, the country appears to be consuming 60% of global fishmeal production.
Commenting on the findings of the report, PECH President and parliamentary rapporteur Pierre Karleskind (Renaissance, France), stated: “EU is leading the fight against IUU-fishing, but we need to do more. We see how China is emptying the waters of third-countries and subsidising its fishing fleet to the detriment of fish resources and the EU fishing fleet.”
European Parliament has advised that members of the PECH Committee want the European Commission to stop the use of flags of convenience and improve the systems used to identify vessels engaged in IUU fishing. MEPs are also proposing that EU countries should apply EU laws on traceability and reporting of catches more effectively, provide information on products caught by Chinese vessels entering the EU market as well as harmonise customs and port controls of imported products.
Committee members will also ask the Commission to implement a traceability system in cooperation with China, and to increase cooperation with the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and other countries to urge China to make progress on addressingworking conditions onboard its vessels as well as tackling IUU fishing.
Shifting focus
The study’s authors, led by Professor Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia, suggest a series of 12 recommendations for PECH, focusing on how to best protect the EU against unfair global competition practices.
As well as ensuring adequate implementation of existing EU legislations like the IUU Regulation and Due Diligence Directive, these include developing an appropriate strategy to respond to China’s increasing domination of global fishmeal supplies, and to secure EU access to this important resource, and, with a view to the future, encourage EU seafood firms to seek primary processing partners outside China, e.g., focusing upon partners in other developing countries with capable but more cost-effective work forces.
The report also highlights that from a trade perspective, China’s role in the global fish and seafood sector is changing. Over the past decade, volumes have increased steadily by 3% per annum (and faster at 5% per annum in live weight or whole fish equivalent – WFE – terms). Its imports reached over 4.4 million tonnes (product weight) in 2019 but these have fallen since, with the Covid-19 pandemic playing a part in decline.
In WFE terms, it advises that Chinese seafood imports have settled down at 5.5-6 million tonnes, and are valued at $13-14 billion annually. The country’s exports are around 7.5 to 8.5 million tonnes WFE, worth around $20 billion annually, with the higher value reflecting the high degree of processing undertaken.
It’s also noted fishmeal dominated China’s aquatic product imports in the period 2012-2021, accounting for 29% in product weight terms and 59% when converted to WFE.
The report further explains that EU-China cooperation at a bilateral level has advanced considerably in the past few years, partly due to the establishment and the political visibility of the Blue Partnership for the Oceans. This agreement, signed in 2018, provides a means for cooperation and dialogue, and encourages the EU and China to cooperate on the regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) to promote better governance.
However, the conflicting geopolitical agenda on the overfishing problem of South China Sea and the blocking of additional maritime protected areas (MPAs) is slowing the effective progress of the cooperation, it said, advising PECH that individual agreements between China and some EU member states might jeopardise the role of the EU’s central institutions in cooperation with China.
According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), China has a total of 564,000 vessels. Although it’s being scaled down, it remains the world’s largest fishing fleet, probably also in distant-waters. In 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs reported that there were 2,700 vessels operating in distant-waters.
