KARACHI - Federal Secretary of National Food Security and Research Ghufran Memon on Thursday stressed the need for promoting aquaculture in the coastal areas of the country. He urged the fisheries experts to identify what is wrong and where in the promotion of fish and other seafood products.
He stated this while addressing to a workshop online titled ‘Promotion of Aquaculture of High Value Species in Coastal Areas of Pakistan,’ organised by the Fisheries Development Board (FDB) at a local hotel. Ghufran said, ‘We can do wonders in next six to twelve months, it’s a virgin area and untapped world.’ He said that they were backwards in the export of fish and other seafood products.
He said that there was a need to identify the problems and issues of the fisheries industry to export healthy and quality seafood products around the world.
He said that he was shown a Fish Processing Unit (FPU), which disappointed him. He further said that FPUs be developed and advanced to keep the seafood fresh as well to grab markets.
He said that Sindh and Balochistan provinces’ participation in the federal government-funded projects was very limited. He invited them to come forward to this effect.
He said that the federal government was working on various projects on fish and aquaculture. Fisheries and shrimps experts on the occasion addressing to the workshop said that they had to make efforts to bring the aquaculture to the standard level of export to European markets. They said that if they wanted to export fish they must had an organisation named ‘National Residue Control Programme (NRCP).
They said that the country cannot export fish unless she had NRCP. They said that Pakistan’s first NRCP would be developed by April.
They workshop speakers also identified that the domestic consumers of fish were also having fish of sewerage-water, which would affect their health. Experts from Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) also shared their issues, proposals and recommendations for the development of the aquaculture.
