Fresh salmon at an Alibaba's Hema Fresh store in Beijing's Shijingshan District on July 28, 2020 Photo: Li Hao/GT

China recently harvested the first batch of farmed salmon from its fish culture zone in the Yellow Sea, marking the first step in warm-waters salmon farming around the globe, according to media reports. 

During the harvest, China procured around 3,000 salmon with a weight of more than 4 kilograms on average, according to a report of Dazhong Daily, a Shandong-based media outlet. Around 80 percent of the fish were alive with their quality assessed as reaching EU export standards. 

It also marked China's success in its six-year deep-sea salmon farming project, in which China used an intelligent fish cage called "Shenlan 1" to raise fish. With the size of 40 standard swimming pools and weighing more than 1,500 tons, the Shenlan 1 is the world's largest fully submersible fish cage and is a breakthrough in China's deep-sea fish farming independent research. 

According to the report, China is expected to harvest about 300,000 salmon fish each year from the fish cage, with a total output of over 1,500 tons and an annual production value of more than 100 million yuan ($15.48 million), given that water temperature is suitable.

Besides, the Yellow Sea salmon farming with help of "Shenlan 1" cage produces high quality fish, lower labor, transportation costs and smaller instance of disease compared with some overseas salmon farming zones, the report noted. 

The salmon culture project was initiated by the Ocean University of China and two Chinese firms, with a total investment of over 4.3 billion yuan, according to previous media reports.