According to the report from the Fisheries Policy Institute, the amount of illegal catch by Chinese boats came to over 675,000 tons in 2012.
The report said the amount represented 21.2 percent of South Korea's total fisheries output in the same year, and also 61.9 percent of the country's total annual catch in its territorial waters, causing 1.35 trillion won ($1.26 billion) in direct losses to the local industry.
"The overall damage will reach an astronomical figure once we add all the indirect costs, such as the cost of police operations to crack down on illegal fishing," it said.
In 2012 alone, a total of 467 Chinese were arrested for illegal fishing in South Korean waters, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said earlier.
But the report said nearly half of up to 3,000 Chinese fishing boats that operate in a joint fishing area in waters between South Korea and China likely engage in illegal fishing by entering South Korea's exclusive waters, especially during fishing seasons.
Japan: MPD bolsters Ogasawara police force against Chinese coral poachers
Japan Times
The Metropolitan Police Department has deployed 28 officers to the remote Ogasawara Islands to protect residents concerned by Chinese fishermen who are poaching valuable coral from the surrounding seabed.
The contingent was sent because the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is responsible for administering the islands, which are about 1,000 km south of the capital.
The team, which includes riot police, will beef up patrols in areas where sightings of Chinese poachers have been made.
The MPD also provided an additional police car to Ogasawara Police Station on Chichijima Island and is planning to deploy vehicles with searchlights, too.
The police station started getting reports from residents in early October about suspicious ships and lights at night.
The Foreign Ministry has already asked the Chinese government to stop the poaching on around 10 occasions, but despite the requests and an arrest last week, the Japan Coast Guard spotted 212 Chinese fishing boats around the Ogasawara Islands on Thursday.
Chinese fishing boats crowd an area of ocean near uninhabited Torishima Island, north of the Ogasawara island chain, on Thursday.
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