Myanmar Government drafted law for the development of animal husbandry and pisciculture to meet international standards

Myanmar is now drafting a lMyanmar is now drafting a law to improve the quality of animal husbandry and pisciculture in Myanmar in order to meet international standards. The law will cover various aspects of animal husbandry such as developing a plan for the deterrence of infectious diseases like swine flue, providing land for commercial livestock breeders, and creating pasturage. “We are now in the process of drafting the law for development of the livestock sector. We hope to submit it to the parliament soon,” said Dr. Ye Win Tun, Director General of the Department of Livestock Breeding and Veterinary under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation. Other matters will also be addressed in the law. Things like creating new cattle markets and slaughterhouses in line with the requirements for food safety and food security will be included in the new law. Furthermore, the country will establish a system enabling locally produced animal products to be exported to international markets in line with the Terrestrial Animal Health Code as set forth by the World Organisation for Animal Health’s (OIE).

The draft also covers the fishers sector. Pisciculture (fish farming) faces difficulties like overfishing and poor management of fisheries. Myanmar has 167 million acres of land, of which 26.7 million are arable. Currently, there are only about 450,000 acres of fish farms across the country. “One cause of the lack of foreign investments flowing into fishery industry is that existing fisheries in Myanmar don’t have a strong paper trail of ownership. For that, we need a lot of legal changes and liberalization from the government,” said Dr. Myint Sein, Senior Vice President of Myanmar Fishery Federation. Myanmar only made about $700 million from fishery exports, out of a total $14.85 billion in exports during the 2018 FY. It made $298 million out of $8.82 billion total exports during the six-month 2018 Transitional Fiscal Year (April to October).

It made a further $495 million out of $9.81 billion between October 2018 and April 2019. Myanmar’s fishery exports are dwarfed by other Southeast Asian nations, and there is clearly much room to grow. In order to do so, a good legal foundation and best-practices need to be put into place, and other countries are helping move things in the right direction.

In an effort to improve Myanmar’s fishery sector, the EU will implement a €20 million fishery development plan in Myanmar, and the Europeans have once again allowed Myanmar

to export wild-caught fish to their countries in 2010. Then in December 2018, they allowed the import of farm-raised fish to their member nations. However, the proposed Livestock law is not without controversy. The Myanmar Fishery Federation is calling for a separate dedicated law for the fishery sector, rather than lumping the two sectors together. U Win Kyaing, Secretary of Myanmar Fishery Federation, said: “There are a lot of laws for livestock breeding as well as for fish breeding. We need to have a specific law for fishing to reduce excessive procedures. This will also be beneficial in that it will improve our ease of doing business ranking.” The problem that the Secretary is referring to having too many different laws. There are various laws including: Aquaculture Law, Fresh Water Fisheries Law, Law Relating To The Fishing Rights of Foreign Fishing Vessels, the Myanma Marine Fisheries Law, and now, the draft for Law for Development of Livestock Sector.

The secretary pointed out that all these laws create excessive procedures necessitating people go from one government department to another. He used Vietnam as an example of how to do it right. He highlighted how their fishery sector is far more developed than Myanmar’s despite the fact that Myanmar’s coastal line and fishery resources are bigger than Vietnam. Myanmar only manages to export $650-$700 million worth of fishery exports, while Vietnam is exporting at least $11 billion annually. He attributes this to their dedicated law regulating the fishery sector, and is urging the Myanmar Government to do the same by developing a clear, precise, and strong policy along with a master plan for the fishery sector.

(Myanmar Business Today: https://www.mmbiztoday.com/articles/myanmar-drafts-law-development-animal-husbandry-and-pisciculture )

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