QINGDAO, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Construction of the world's first 100,000-tonnage smart fish farming ship has started in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.

The aquaculture ship Conson No.1, which is 249.9 meters long and 45 meters wide, is expected to be delivered in March 2022, said Dong Shaoguang, deputy general manager of Qingdao Conson Development Group, an investor in the construction project.

With a water body displacement of 130,000 tonnes and a design speed of 10 knots, it can move to avoid typhoons, red tides and other types of severe weather and disasters, and carry out aquaculture operations in global waters, Dong said.

The ship is equipped with a water exchange system and a deep water intake device, which will help the fish grow and improve the breeding quality, he added.

Wang Xiaohu, head of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, said in order to solve the problems of insufficient fishing resources and deterioration of the breeding environment, Chinese scientists put forward the idea of fish farming ships around the 1980s.

Since 2019, the Group has started research with major Chinese shipbuilders and research institutes on a project to build 100,000-tonnage cruising fish farming ships.

The company said it would cooperate with partners to build 50 such ships with a total tonnage of more than 5 million tonnes, to form a deep-sea aquaculture industrial chain with an annual output of more than 200,000 tonnes of high-value fish worth more than 11 billion yuan (1.68 billion U.S. dollars). Enditem