South Korea said Monday that it will strengthen punishment against illegal fishing by Chinese boats as part of the nationwide crackdown efforts on the issue during the busy crab season.

Chinese fishing boats trespassing into Korean waters and sweeping fisheries have been an outstanding problem during the mid-year season, causing serious damage to the South Korean fishermen's operations around the northern sea border area, called Northern Limit Line, where the Chinese fishermen use hit-and-run tactics.

The Chinese intrusions have been increasing year by year as this year's peak-season crab caught by South Koreans dropped about 70 percent from a year ago, according to government data.

The South Korean military kicked off a crackdown operation to drive out Chinese fishing boats from its territorial waters in June under the authorization of the United Nations Command, which regulates the military buffer zone.

On the diplomatic side, Seoul last week called on China to take "effective" and "tangible" countermeasures aimed at resolving the issue.

In line with the efforts, the South Korea government will create a task force within the Coast Guard to take charge of the crackdown efforts around the NLL.

It will confiscate boats and scrap them, while taking the captain into custody.

It will also raise the arrest deposit, or the money that the boat owner has to pay to the South Korea authorities for a release, to 300 million won ($260,000) from 200 million won starting from September.

The government also said it will establish an additional 80 artificial underwater facilities worth 8 billion won to fend off Chinese boats from reaching the west coast of the country.

It has spent 2 billion won to build 18 such artificial reefs to counter illicit Chinese fishing for the past four years. (Yonhap)