Sri Lanka is working on increasing its deep sea fishing efforts and doubling fish exports between now and 2015 and to achieve this goal, it will be using new vessels from Japan and China.
The minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, Dr Rajitha Senaratne, said that the goal is that the income generated from fish exports change from USD 250 million to USD 500 million.
Representatives of Japan’s Kiyoshi Kimura, also known as the Tuna King, recently visited Sri Lanka and will be the one to send about four vessels for deep sea fishing to the country. Kimura also intends to build vessels together with Sri Lanka’s Cey-Nor company to be operated out of Sri Lanka, Senaratne said.
Sri Lanka expects that Kimura will eventually help operate 20 deep sea fishing vessels from the country, the minister said, Daily News reports.
In addition, there will probably be some 20 Chinese vessels operating from Sri Lanka with about four to six others anticipated to join the fleet soon after.
Vessels from both countries will be registered in Sri Lanka and fly the Sri Lankan flag, Senaratne said, as well as land their catch and export from the island, Lanka Business Online reports.
He also shared that he was planning to launch a training course for captains, as Japan and China have agreed to hire Sri Lankan crews for their ships.
As far as seafood exports, Sri Lanka exported fish products worth USD 256 million in 2012, of which about 45 per cent consisted of tuna, the minister said.
“Several foreign flagged deep sea fishing vessels from Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia operating in international waters land their catch in Sri Lanka for export. There are about 200 landings a year,” Senaratne stated.
“Though Sri Lanka has about 3,000 multi-day boats, only about 300 vessels are operated in the deep sea and most are engaged in coastal fisheries,” he continued.
The minister said that Sri Lanka is expecting that the ‘yellow card’ warning from the European Commission (EC) applied to alleged illegal vessels will be removed, as Sri Lanka has already exerted tough action against illegal, unregistered and unregulated (IUU) vessels and he has communicated this to top officials in charge of fisheries at the EC.
Sri Lanka has already eliminated all illegal fishing methods from its waters, such as dynamite, light course fishing and using nets that damage fisheries resources.