As part of an effort to expand the country’s potential blue economy, the government has undertaken a project to catch Tuna and tuna-like pelagic fish in the deep-sea and international waters.
The project, initiated by the Fisheries Department will be presented for approval at the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) meeting on Tuesday (August 18).
Through this, trained and skilled manpower for deep-sea tuna and similar fishing will be created.
Tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae family.
Regarding the matter, Chief Scientific Officer (Fisheries Planning and Survey) of the Department of Fisheries, Mizanur Rahman, said the project has been taken with the country blue economy in mind.
“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had earlier instructed that resources should be extracted from deep-sea waters to expand the country’s blue economy. As a result, the project will be implemented on a pilot basis.”
“Skilled manpower will be brought from Sri Lanka and India. They will teach us how to extract Tuna and similar pelagic fish from the sea. Also, through government projects, foreign experts will teach fishing techniques to interested fishermen and traders in the private sector,” he said.
Once this system is in full swing, private investment will increase, he added.
Prime Minister and ECNEC Chairperson Sheikh Hasina will preside over the meeting with National Economic Council (NEC) virtually from Ganabhaban.
According to Planning Commission, legal and equitable rights have been established for fishing in an area of 1 lakh 17 thousand 613 square kilometres as the border of Bangladesh has been determined in the Bay of Bengal through the International Court of Justice.
The cost for the project has been estimated at Tk 61 crore. After the approval of ECNEC, the project will be implemented by the Department of Fisheries from July this year to June 2023.
The project will include the purchase and operation of three long-liner fishing vessels, the extraction of tuna and similar pelagic fish, the formulation of deep-sea fishing strategies and action plans, and the training of 100 people engaged in tuna extraction, including cruise. For this 36 local and 6 international consultants will be appointed, according to the commission,
According to Department of Fisheries, the legal and equitable right to fish has been established in an area of 1 lakh 18 thousand 613 square kilometres as the border of Bangladesh has been determined in the Bay of Bengal through the International Court of Justice.
At present, extraction of marine fisheries through the small-scale fisheries sector of Bangladesh is mainly confined to the shallow areas of the sea.
In many cases, fish conservation laws are not properly enforced which severely hinders the entry of juvenile fish in fish stocks and forced modern industrial trawlers to be restricted to four fishing grounds.
Besides, the contribution of the fisheries sector to food security and economic development of Bangladesh is crucial. Fish provides about 80 percent of the population’s daily diet.
According to the Bangladesh Economic Survey 2019, 3.50 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and about one-fourth (25.61 per cent) of the total agricultural income comes from fisheries sector. In the last 10 years, the average GDP growth in this sector has been 5.26 percent.
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