Crawfish city seeks to boost production, enhance innovation

Overseas demand for Chinese crawfish and related products is huge and is on the rise, pushing the country's largest crawfish supplier Qianjiang in Hubei province to increase its production capacity and enhance innovations, said the mayor of the city.

Gong Dingrong, mayor of Qianjiang and a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress, said overseas and domestic demand for crawfish is so huge that the city can only meet around 50 percent of this so far.

"The domestic supply of crawfish is around 1.08 million metric tons. Demand from home and abroad totals around 2.6 million tons. The gap is more than 50 percent," said Gong of the supply and demand from last year.

Qianjiang has 10 years of experience of exporting crawfish to more than 30 countries and regions, and it is particularly popular in Europe, in terms of both frozen raw crawfish and ready-to-eat products.

In recent years, Chitin, which is extracted from crustaceans, has been a highly profitable product exported from Qianjiang to international markets such as the United States.

The city has extended its industry chains and processing capacity to develop more Chitin-related products - mostly health products - to grab a bigger share of international markets, Gong said.

However, despite the flourishing market, the production capacity of crawfish has reached its ceiling, with a strict requirement on its breeding area, water and climate. Therefore, to further expand the output of crawfish, Gong said the city has collaborated with 45 enterprises from 15 regions or cities, setting up breeding standards and sharing technology and teaching the skills of breeding crawfish.

Qianjiang is a city with a population of about 1 million and now has more than 2,000 crawfish restaurants.

The city has been renowned for its rice-planting and crawfish breeding methods, which have generated an innovative way for local farmers to become more affluent.

Gong said more than half of the crawfish farmers have annual income of more than 200,000 yuan ($29,800). There are more than 100,000 people engaged in the crawfish industry in the city.

Deng Xiuxin, an NPC deputy, said industry standards and large-scale breeding and farming will give enterprises a market advantage. However, it is vital to maintain the right production capacity in order to keep its good quality.