Last year 1 gave a keynote address in the aquaculture session of the 3rd World Fisheries Congress (WFC) held in China. That congress was a fascinating glimpse of what is to come in World Aquaculture 2002, the annual conference and exposition of theWorld Aquaculture Society (WAS), which will be in Beijing in April, 2002. This article is a 'taster' to persuade members to take the opportunity of a lifetime to see aquaculture in China and come to the meeting. Aquaculture production statistics published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that, while the rest of the world produces annually about 10 million mt of fish, crustaceans and mollusks, China produces nearly 21 million mt (67 percent of the global total). Chineseproduction expanded to nearly 24 million mt in 1999. The value of these commodities farmed by China in 1998 is nearly US 22 billion dollar. The value of the production of the rest of the world (US 25 billion dollar) exceeds that of China. This disparityis due to the tendency for many other countries to concentrate on high value species groups, such as salmonids, shrimp, and marine fish. However, the characteristics of Chinese aquaculture are changing, and China will soon dominate the world in aquaculture value as well as volume. China also produces about 6 million mt of aquatic plants compared with only 2.2 million mt in the rest of the world.
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