Success Stories In Asian Aquaculture - Library - Network of ...

9 The Role of Exotics in Chinese Inland Aquaculture179Fig. 9.5 Production of the Pacific white shrimp and red swamp crayfish in ChinaIn 2006, the aquaculture area for the crayfish reached nearly 40,000 ha with aproduction of 35,000 tons in Hubei province, presenting 30% of the country’stotal production (Fig. 9.5 ).In the case of P. vannamei, a series of experiments were conducted in a range ofsalinities (Pong et al. 2005) , and based on such findings, gradually its culture wasextended inland. The pond production in seawater could reach 7500 kg ha −1 (Shenet al . 2004) . Freshwater culture of P. vannamei in China reached approximately510,070 tons in 2006 (Table 9.1 ), accounting for more than half of China’s totalinland shrimp/prawn production (Table 9.1 ).In addition to the inland production, in marine waters, P. vannamei productionreached 512,019 tons in 2006, representing 69.9% of total marine shrimp productionin mainland China. Postlarvae production of P. vannamei reached 25.11 billionin 2005 and 49.24 billion in 2006, which ensured the high production of the shrimpboth in freshwater and marine water.Overall, the contribution of P. vannamei production from China to globalproduction is on the decline (Fig. 9.3 ). This, however, is not a result of a reductionin production per se , but due to an increased production in other Asian countries,such as in Thailand and Vietnam.9.3 Markets and Processing Industry DevelopmentsThe development of the culture of exotic finfish and crustaceans has also resultedin the development of export markets and associated processing sectors. For example,from 2003 onwards, the number of processing plants increased fast and the exportof channel catfish fillet to the United States increased from 326 tons in 2003 to