Zhoushan's distant ocean fishery had a strong start in the first quarter of this year, with significant increases in squid and tuna catches.

The city's total import volume of distant ocean aquatic products reached 198,000 metric tons, marking a 44 percent year-on-year increase. Specifically, squid imports amounted to 153,000 tons, up by 62 percent compared to the same period last year.

Huqun Wharf is the largest distant ocean squid import port in the country. In the first quarter, approximately 30 distant ocean frozen transport ships unloaded fish at the port, with around 170,000 tons already unloaded. Among these, squid accounted for approximately 140,000 tons, or 70 percent, with fishing grounds mainly in the Southeast Pacific, near the equator, and in the Argentine fishing grounds.

The city has ramped up its modern fishing vessels through projects with countries like Kiribati. In the first three months of this year, the city saw the completion of four new large-scale tuna purse seine vessels, enhancing the proportion of high-end fishing vessels in the city. This development not only boosted the tuna production for the month but is also expected to add approximately 40,000 tons of tuna raw materials annually to the city.

Zhoushan, known as the country's largest distant ocean fishing production base and the largest port for distant ocean self-catch fish imports, has seen improvements in distant ocean fishery enterprises' self-catch fish return and port supply guarantee in recent years. It has attracted a large amount of national distant ocean self-catch aquatic products to be unloaded at Zhoushan.