The groundbreaking ceremony of Ocean Family's sea food processing industrial cluster zone project is held at the Zhoushan Pelagic Fishery Base on March 20. [Photo/zj.zjol.com] 

Construction on a seafood processing industrial zone for Ocean Family, a seafood processing and trade company in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province, started at the city's Pelagic Fishery Base on March 20.

The first phase of the project, receiving over 1 billion yuan ($141.05 million) in investment, will cover an area of around 18.73 hectares and construction is expected to finish by the end of 2022.

The zone will apply modern engineering, advanced production, and intelligent and environmentally-friendly technology to the processing of seafood such as tuna and squid, and will also house supporting facilities including R&D centers and cold-chain logistics facilities.

Ocean Family aims to develop the zone into the largest, most intelligent, and most modern aquatic food processing center in China. It is expected to process more than 200,000 metric tons of seafood every year, generate 3 billion yuan in annual output, and help develop Zhoushan into a major global tuna processing and trading hub. 

Ocean Family, since moving its headquarters to Zhoushan in April 2017, has invested more than 400 million yuan into the fishing industry and built 10 ocean-going vessels.