Aquaculture extension services in the People's Republic of China

1.1 Background

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is located in the eastern part of Asia and the western shore of the Pacific Ocean. It is traditionally agricultural, with its rural population accounting for more than 70% of the country's total of about 1.2 billion. In 1994, agriculture comprised 35% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), of which 8.2% of value of output came from fisheries.
China has a long history of fisheries. Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and particularly during the 1980s, fisheries developed rapidly. In 1988, China ranked third among countries with an annual fisheries production of more than 10 million mt, and in 1990 was first among the world producers. In 1994, China had a record production of over 20 million mt, about 20 percent of the world total (Table 1).
Statistics indicate that the preceding ten years has been the fastest growing period in the country's history, with an annual growth rate of 13.2%, much higher than that of the world average. A rapidly developing aquaculture sector is one of the key factors for the development of fisheries at a fast pace. Aquaculture became the fastest growing sub-sector in fisheries. Its production increased even faster than that of capture fisheries, reaching more than 11.3 million mt in 1994. This accounted for 52.8% of the total fisheries production, and ranked first in the world.

Table 1. Percentage of China's fisheries production on world production.

Year	China fisheries prod'n	World fisheries prod'n	China's % share in world prod'n
1949	447,927
1950	911,539	19,084,143	4.8
1955	2,517,886	27,630,594	9.1
1960	3,037,823	35,241,660	8.6
1965	2,984,297	49,442,232	6.0
1970	3,184,525	65,200,734	4.9
1975	4,411,760	65,462,869	6.7
1978	4,657,782	70,003,843	6.6
1979	4,304,672	70,801,482	6.0
1980	4,496,985	71,998,778	6.2
1981	4,605,744	74,562,332	6.1
1982	5,155,050	76,726,752	6.7
1983	5,458,143	77,444,328	7.0
1984	6,193,437	83,850,739	7.4
1985	7,051,775	86,335,094	8.1
1986	8,235,475	92,754,065	8.9
1987	9,553,200	94,297,477	10.1
1988	10,609,739	98,894,510	10.7
1989	11,516,648	100,115,350	11.5
1990	12,370,548	97,432,622	12.7
1991	13,539,476	97,395,726	13.9
1992	15,575,658	98,798,015	15.7
1993	18,261,815	102,442,699	18.0
1994	21,464,073

1.2 Agro-physical features

1.2.1 Physical geography
The Chinese territory is vast, with the mainland extending over 5,000 km from east to west, and the distance from north to south traversing more than 5,500 km. Its land area of 9 600 000 km², makes it the third largest country in the world. Its coastline is 18,000 km, and the country faces the Bohai, Yellow, East China, and South China Seas to the east and to the south. More than 5,400 islands with an aggregate coastline of 14,000 km are scattered in the sea. Taiwan is the largest island, followed by Hainan, Chougming, Zhanshan, Donghai, Haitan and Dongshan islands.
China shares borders with 11 countries: Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam; her mainland boundary line is about 20,000 km.
The country is high in the west and low in the east; it could be best described as a flight of three levels, with the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau as the highest level in the west. Its average altitude is more than 4,000 m above sea level. Mount Qomolangma which is 8,848 m high is famous as "the roof of the world;" it is situated in the southwest edge of the plateau between China and Nepal.
From the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau to the north and east, the average altitude declines to 1,000-2,000 m, forming the second level. It includes the Yunnan-Guizhon, Huangtu and Inner Mongolia plateaus and the Sichuan, Talimu and Zhungeer basins.

The third level is along the line of Mount Daxinganling, Mount Taihang and the east edge of the Yunnan-Guizhon Plateau to the east. It consists mainly of hilly land (less than 1,000 m) and flatlands (less than 200 m) which include the three major plains - the Northeast, North China and the lower Yangtze Plains. These three plains have a total area of about one million km², and make up roughly one tenth of China's territory. They are the most densely populated in China.
China's topography is roughly classified into five major categories: 33 percent mountainous regions; 26 percent plateaus; 19 percent basins; 12 percent plains and 10 percent hilly areas.

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