SEAFOOD sales in Shenzhen are picking up one month after the 108-day fishing ban in the South China Sea was lifted Aug. 16, Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.

The owner of a stall in a seafood market in Yantian District said their business has returned to 70 to 80 percent of the original scale. Most of the seafood they sell now is local produce and little is imported, the stall owner said. The stall was closed at the beginning of the year due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

The News reporter found that a wide variety of seafood including turbot, flounder, line, grouper, mussels, and mantis shrimp are being sold at the seafood market.

Staff with a seafood restaurant near the market said that they mainly bought seafood from the domestic market after the fishing ban was lifted and the price also declined.

An employee with a restaurant at the Shuitou seafood market in Dapeng New Area said that their business is gradually returning to normal.

“We received nearly seven to eight tables of customers on weekdays and about 20 tables on weekends,” said the staff member.

Epidemic preventative measures have been introduced at the restaurant to prevent and control virus infections after the termination of the fishing ban.

The marine law enforcement authority in Yantian said that they have arranged officers to receive and check goods so that local fishermen will not have direct contact with the goods.

Police from Dapeng New Area said that they have implemented a closed-off management in fishing ports and check the body temperature of people on piers to ensure safety.

It is reported that more than 700 boats set out to fish in the ocean from Dapeng after the fishing ban was lifted.

(Wang Jingli)