ISLAMABAD: The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), a joint initiative of the Ministry of Finance, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would continue its efforts to assist the fisheries.

 

"Pakistan has a fish and seafood industry that includes ancillary industries worth US$ 1.2 billion," says Arthur Bayhan, CSF"s Chief Executive Officer, pointing out that the industry is under threat from two sides. "One is overfishing, that threatens to reduce the resource base and hence the yields while the other is from poor quality control, which means that the value of the catch is not being maximized and much go waste," Bayhan says. According to a statement issued here, the CSF has been assisting Pakistan"s fisheries sector since 2007 on request from an Inter-Provincial Consultative Committee (IPCC). CSF intervened by deploying one of its fishery experts Robert Lindley to undertake a study on the fisheries of Pakistan.