Govt won't allow fish import: Minister

FT ONLINE

The government will not allow fish import for protecting the local fisheries industry, Fisheries and Livestock Minister Narayon Chandra Chanda said.

"We need to discourage import of fishes and milk power for producing adequate fish, meat and milk of international standard to fulfill our deficiency," said the minister while speaking at a citizen's dialogue at CIRDAP auditorium in the capital on Sunday.

Although Bangladesh has secured the 4th position in sweet water fishes and black Bengal goat production in the world, the contribution of meat and fishes to the GDP is very little, he said.

The minister, however, said, "We must earn people's confidence in local fish, meat, milk and egg production so we can overcome the necessity of import."

Expressing the hope to ensure quality fish production, Narayon Chandra said it is essential to modernize the livestock sector alongside raising fishing capabilities in the sea by procuring equipment and ships.

He said while the country has resources in 650 kilometers of maritime boundary, but we could not have access to more than 100 kilometers in 47 years of our independence. "We have to utilize the vast sea resources including fisheries, minerals and the flora and fauna.

Bangladesh can catch fish from up to 660 kilometres from the Bay of Bengal but its trawlers tap fisheries from only up to 60 kilometres owing to lack of facilities.

For instance, in 2016 the country caught only 95,000 tonnes of fish compared to 8 million tonnes by India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand from the Bay of Bengal. Bangladeshi trawlers accounted for 11 percent of the total catch last year.

"We have huge untapped resources in the sea," said M Khurshed Alam, secretary of Maritime Affairs Unit of the foreign affairs ministry.

Some 69,000 artisanal mechanised and non-mechanised boats and about 200 industrial steel body trawlers are engaged in fishing in up to 60 kilometres from the coastline, according to Alam.

"And hilsha is the single most valuable species caught."

There is tremendous scope for increasing marine catch by introducing technology, long line and incentives for bigger ocean going trawler, said Alam, also a former naval officer.

The global population will be 9 billion by 2050 and 100 million tonnes of additional fishes will be needed by that time.

"It will be good if we can catch at least 5 million tonnes of fishes from the sea."

Bangladesh has taken initiatives to tap into the blue economy after it got the right to fish and explore resources within 118,813 square kilometres of the sea and trawl up to 200 nautical miles into the Bay of Bengal based on a verdict from an international tribunal in 2014.