ISLAMABAD  - The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), a joint initiative of the Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is to continue its efforts to assist the fisheries sector in Pakistan in 2010.

 

“Pakistan has a fish and seafood industry that includes ancillary industries worth US$1.2 billion,” says Arthur Bayhan, CSF’s Chief Executive Officer, who however, points 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 is going to waste,” Mr. Bayhan says.

 

Accarding to a statement issued here, CSF has been assisting Pakistan’s fisheries sector since 2007 when in response to a request for action from an Inter-Provincial Consultative Committee (IPCC) meeting, CSF intervened by deploying one of its fishery experts Mr. Robert Lindley, to undertake a study on the fisheries of Pakistan.The study identified three areas where competitiveness was low and could be improved.  These were:

 

i.Value losses in the cool chain of the existing marine catch, both for export and for internal consumption (several competitiveness issues were identified)ii. Fisheries management shortcomings leading to poor resource utilization and overfishing of resources. iii. Aquaculture, where production is far below potential.

 

As an immediate response to the first of these identified problems, an action plan, concentrating on the Fish Harbor in West Karachi was presented, which recommended changes in management at the KFH and proposed infrastructure investments to improve quality of the fish passing through. In addition a Working Group to guide the future of the KFH was established.