Tuesday, February 09, 2010

By By our correspondent 

ISLAMABAD: The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), a joint initiative of the Ministry of Finance and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has announced it will continue efforts to assist the fisheries sector in the current year.

 

“Pakistan has a fish and seafood industry that includes ancillary industries worth $1.2 billion,” but the industry was under threat from two sides, said CSF Chief Executive Officer Arthur Bayhan.

 

“One is over-fishing that threatens to reduce the resource base and hence the yields while the other is poor quality control, which means that the value of the catch is not being maximised and much is going to waste,” he said in a press release.

 

The CSF had been assisting Pakistan’s fisheries sector since 2007 when in response to a request for action from the Inter-provincial Consultative Committee (IPCC), the fund deployed fishery expert Robert Lindley to undertake a study on the sector, the statement said.

 

The study identified three areas where competitiveness was low and can be improved. These areas included value losses in cool chain of existing marine catch, both for export and internal consumption, fisheries management shortcomings leading to poor resource utilisation and over-fishing of resources, and aquaculture where production was far below potential.