CHINA’S top fishery official Yang Jian lauded a United Nations-led plan designed to replenish the world’s falling fish stocks Sunday.Yangn said China was well on course to realize sustainable fishing, the English language newspaper China Daily reported yesterday. Referring to an agreement to salvage the world’s depleted fisheries reached last week at the United Nations Earth Summit in Johannesburg, Yang said the move was a positive response by the international community to tackle the fishing resources crisis. “China has come to realize that the conservation of fishing resources is a continuous process, which calls for ever-enhanced and never-yielding protective efforts,” the newspaper quoted Yang as saying. Domestically, fishing resources had dwindled significantly because of years of overfishing and water pollution, fishery experts said. Ministry of Agriculture reports indicate that China had nearly a quarter of a million offshore fishing boats in 2000, more than four times as many as 20 years ago, according to the paper. Stepping up from the “zero growth” offshore-fishing policy in place since 1999, the Chinese Government is determined to secure “negative growth” in offshore and inland-water fishing from this year, Yang said.To achieve this, boats are being removed from the fishing fleet and fishermen are being transferred to other jobs, Yang said, adding that the development of aquaculture (fish farming) was another important facet. (Xinhua)