July 10, 2008	Thursday	Rajab 6, 1429

KARACHI, July 9: Fishermen Cooperative Society administrator Mohammad Jafar Khwaja has underlined the need for improving the quality of Pakistani seafood to boost exports.

Inaugurating a five-day training workshop for FCS marketing staff on Wednesday, the administrator said, “We should not only improve the quality of seafood meant for export to European countries but also for the domestic market to raise the consumption of seafood products locally.

“We could achieve this objective by adopting better hygiene standards that alone could enable us to compete in the global market,” he said, advising the marketing staff to help ensure hygiene at the harbour as required by the European Union countries.

The training workshop was conducted by the marine fisheries department as part of the government policy to boost the exports of seafood products that declined due to a ban imposed by the EU. Pakistan earns US$190 million annually from exports of fish and shrimp at present.

The government also intended to boost fisheries exports through a public-private partnership based on sustainable production growth of marine and inland fisheries. The minister hoped the workshop would have a positive impact on the working of harbour and marketing skills of the staff concerned, which would eventually help lift the EU ban.

European countries traditionally provide the largest market for Pakistan’s fishery exports, taking about half of the total exports by value. Apart from the EU countries, the other major markets for shrimp are Japan and the US. However, due to the EU ban, seafood exports have fallen by about US$100 million in the outgoing financial year.

The ban was imposed in April 2007 following an earlier request from the EU that the government take steps to tackle hygiene standards’ deficiencies at processing plants. The request followed an earlier visit by a team of EU inspectors to processing plants in Karachi. The current ban is the third that Pakistan has faced over failure to comply with EU export standards. The first export ban was imposed in 1998 and the second in February 2005, before the third was imposed in April 2007.

Fishermen and seafood exporters are hoping the EU export ban may be lifted following a series of steps taken by fisheries authorities aiming to resolve the issue.

Karachi is the centre of the fishing industry with about 6,000 of Pakistan’s estimated 13,000 fishing vessels using Karachi Fish Harbour.

The total marine fishing fleet includes about 2,600 shrimp trawlers and about 3,600 gill netters. Other fishing boats are mainly motor-cum-sail boats with outboard engines. Most of the seafood exporters are based in the metropolis.

As part of official support for the first National Fisheries Policy, the government announced that work is under way to prepare a US$10 million action plan to modernise and upgrade the Karachi Fish Harbour Authority, which owns and manages the fishing port. Fisheries officials hope the plan, when implemented, would help maximise the value of the fish catch.