SHENZHEN plans to build four 100,000-ton smart aquaculture vessels as part of its ambitious plan to “reclaim land from the sea.”

The ships will be built using homegrown technology, DT News reported Wednesday. Earlier media reports said the key technology involved is the nonstop water exchange between the cabin and the sea that makes the ship’s water environment enclosed and controllable.

Eight experts attended a meeting to evaluate the feasibility report for the mobile fish farm project in Yantian District on Tuesday. The experts mainly came from mariculture, genetic breeding, biotechnology, fisheries, and shipping design and construction fields, and they had put forward opinions and suggestions on how to develop Shenzhen’s deep-sea fishing industry before unanimously passing the report.

The experts believed that the project is an effective way to carry out industrialized deep-sea aquaculture production. The vessels, which will be installed with a fully enclosed system for fish farming and are large enough to survive typhoons, will facilitate the implementation of an all-season seafood farming mode and significantly increase aquatic product supplies, they noted.

The aquaculture vessel construction has been listed as a key project in the city’s modern fishery development plan (2022-2025). The main breeding species are those commonly found in the South China Sea.

Through the development and construction of large aquaculture vessels and the establishment of industrialized farming technology standards, the city hopes to form a comprehensive fishery production and supply system that integrates land-based hatchery, captive breeding, primary processing, cold chain logistics and product marketing.

Gao Erjian, vice head of the city’s planning and natural resources bureau, attended Tuesday’s meeting and said that Shenzhen will put more emphasis on promoting the development of deep-sea fisheries due to land constraints and offshore environmental protection requirements.

With a market of around 80 million consumers in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen is in a good position to become an important international aquatic products distribution and transshipment center through the development of the deep-sea aquaculture industry, Gao said.

In a world first, China delivered a 100,000-ton smart aquaculture vessel in May in Qingdao, East China’s Shandong Province.

The ship, named Guoxin-1, is the realization of an innovative mobile fish farming model regarded as a technological breakthrough for China’s deep-sea aquaculture industry.

(SD News)