"Ocean Wonders" spans thousands of miles - the Chinese figure of Mauritania's fishing base

Xinhua News Agency, Fuzhou, September 7 Title: "Marine Adventure" Spans Thousands of Miles - The Chinese Figure of Mauritania's Fishing Base

Xinhua News Agency reporter Huang Pengfei

On the Atlantic coast, on the west coast of Africa, in the coastal city of Nuwadibu in Mauritania, a group of distant-water fisheries explorers from China have left their footprints. With the dream of starting a business, they started out in poverty and white, and they established the largest distant-water fishing base in China's overseas investment.

Around 2010, Lan Pingyong, chairman of Fujian Hongdong Fishery Co., Ltd., and others set off from China and came all the way to Africa to investigate fishery resources, and since then began a special "marine adventure" between China and Mauritania.

"Walking by the sea, there are conch shells everywhere, fish and shrimp left behind by fishermen can be seen everywhere on the beach, and dense schools of fish wander offshore." On his first arrival in Mauritania, Lan Pingyong was stunned by the richness of the African continent, which still had such a rich fishing product on the coast of West Africa at a time when many countries were suffering from the depletion of offshore fishery resources.

"To be the best fishing enterprise, you must find the best fishing resources." In search of new fishing grounds, Lan Pingyong, who has been fishing for decades, has traveled to the world's oceans. He keenly found that mauritania's coastal fishery resource endowments are unique, but the local processing and preservation technology is backward, and many available resources are ignored, which is the "land of talent" in the eyes of fishermen.

Unable to wait to return to China, Lan Pingyong and his fellow entrepreneurs immediately had a bold idea: to build a distant-water fishing base with a whole industrial chain on this barren coast. At that time, Nuwadibu was just a small fishing port on the edge of the Sahara Desert, and the city did not have a single complete asphalt road.

No electricity? Generate your own electricity. No fresh water? Desalinate the seawater. Buy cement and steel reinforcement from Europe, bring sand and gravel from the desert nearly 100 kilometers away, and invite construction teams from China thousands of miles away. Zheng Jincan, director of the infrastructure department of Hongdong Fisheries Co., Ltd., said: "From China to Mauritania, it takes 50 days to transport building materials and equipment, and we have transported more than 500 containers of containers alone. ”

Zheng Jincan still remembers that the company's construction team was stationed in Africa for many years, busy with construction site construction during the day, and sleeping in a tent with foam board and paper skin at night. Soon, the first dock was built, the ship repair shop was quickly completed, and there were ice factories, desalination plants, cold storage, seafood processing plants..." The construction of a base on the edge of the desert is unimaginable to look back on, although it is extremely hard, but it is happy and unforgettable. He said.

With the support of the Mauritanian government, Hongdong Fisheries Company successfully obtained 169 fishing licenses, with a total annual catch of 100,000 tons, and developed into the largest local fishing enterprise.

"We went to Africa to start a business, not only for the development of the company, but more importantly, to lead the local people to grow together." Chen Zhongjie, deputy general manager of the company, said that before the construction of the base, many local fishermen dried their fishing products on the beach. In order to promote the development of the fishery industry, the company will carry out teaching step by step from the most basic boating, fishing and processing, and guide fishermen to participate in standardized fishing and processing production. "Nowadays, many locals have accumulated skills and experience, and some people have begun to try loans to buy boats and start their own fishing business."

On the one hand, it is necessary to speed up the construction of a modern comprehensive fishery base, and on the other hand, it actively promotes the employment and income of the local people. Lan Pingyong introduced that the company has also built schools, living communities, sports fields in the local area, and configured a round-trip shuttle to transport local employees to work. In the city of Nouadibu, which has a population of less than 100,000 people, nearly 2,000 people are now employed at Hongdong's fishing base.

"We are also constantly learning from our friends in Africa, and the local awareness of the protection of the ecological environment is strong, and we continue to standardize our operations and practice the spirit of environmental protection." Lan Pingyong introduced that the local government and society are very strict about the protection of fishery resources. For example, octopuses under 500 grams are banned, and only sardines larger than 18 centimeters long can be caught legally, "as long as a fish caught illegally is found, the authorities will issue tens of thousands of dollars in fines on the spot." ”

Today, Hongdong Fisheries Company has built a modern integrated fishing base of more than 90,000 square meters in Mauritania, with an annual output value of about 70 million US dollars. The base catches and processes more than 80 kinds of seafood, and the products have passed the EU certification and are exported to African countries and the EUROPEAN Union, Southeast Asia, South Korea, Japan and other places all year round, contributing to the industrial development and economic growth of Mauritania.

"With the help of the Belt and Road Initiative, we plan to establish more fishing bases in East Africa and South America in the future, so that more countries can participate in fishery cooperation." Lan Pingyong said that adhering to the value concept of openness, inclusiveness, cooperation and win-win results, the construction of China's overseas distant-water fishing bases has continued to make progress, more and more countries have begun to recognize the "Belt and Road" cooperation initiative, and the road for Chinese enterprises to "go global" has become wider and wider.

This article originated from Xinhua News Agency

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