Myanmar government stressed to improve farming capacity to earn USD $ 1 billion yearly from fishery export

If Myanmar can improve domestic farming capacity, up to US$1 billion could be earned yearly from export of fishery products, said Deputy Minister for Commerce Aung Htoo.

“If we can try to improve farming capacity locally, we will be in a position soon to earn up to US$1 billion,” the deputy minister said.

In the fourth year of the government’s term, the country earned over US$730 million from export of fishery products such as fish and prawn.

“As both freshwater and seawater fish farming improves, we could export fisheries worth US$732 million last year,” he added.

According to the ministry data, over US$680 million has been earned from fishery export over the past eight and a half months in the current fiscal year, exceeding over US$100 million when compared to the same period of last fiscal year.

From October 1 to June 12 in the current 2019-2020 fiscal year, US$683.052 million was earned from fishery export. The same period of last year saw US$581.165 million. So, this year has seen additional US$101.887 million.

According to the Fisheries Department, Myanmar still needs to do a lot more to compete with its neighbouring countries in exporting fisheries products including fish and prawn. The department suggests about improving farming rather than natural catching.

During the 16th meeting between Vice President (1) and local businessmen in May 2018, Htay Myint, president of Myanmar Fisheries Federation, said modern fish farms, feedstuff factories and cold storage factories would be built in cooperation with experts from Indonesia, Taiwan and China to be able to earn US$3 billion from fishery export.

The Ministry of Planning and Finance also has loan plans for fish and prawn species, land supply and SMEs.

(Eleven Media Group: https://elevenmyanmar.com/news/dy-minister-stresses-need-to-improve-farming-capacity-to-earn-1bn-yearly-from-fishery-export )

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