The Sindh government has extended the EU specified fishing boat modification programme till June 2012 to meet the 500 modified vessels target in a bid to get rid of a four-year ban slapped on Pakistan's seafood export to European markets in 2007 on quality grounds, officials said on Tuesday.
Officials said that Karachi Fish Harbour Authority (KFHA) sought one-year extension for the boat modification programme after it had failed to reach any closer to the target to produce 500 big and small modified vessels during the last fiscal year. "Total 500 boats will be modified under the boat modification programme of Rs 555 million of which 200 big size and 300 different categories of small size fishing boats will be made equal to the standards, which EU specified," they added.
They said until present the authority has modified about 133 big size fishing boats while 67 are under the modification process at the harbour, while five small size and 155 Hora boats are being modified. The government has financed the programme with 75 percent of the total boat modification cost while the owner will have to pay only 25 percent of the share, officials said.
"The financing facility is given to disburden the poor boat owners and speed up the modification process from the first day of the programme, which helped the government achieve a greater success," they said. The last year's catastrophic floods in the country particularly in Sindh province have caused huge delays in transfers of funds allocated for the boat modification programme and its related fish harbour uplift schemes, they said, adding that the extension would help the authority find finances this fiscal year.
The EU had imposed a ban on Pakistan's seafood export into its markets with laying down conditions to fulfil its standards in April 2007 and asked the country to modify fishing vessels and renovate auction halls besides telling exporters to overhaul their seafood processing units.
KFHA had chalked out a plan in year 2000 under Commodore Naqvi to revamp fishing boats in line with the global fishing standards, which until 2007 could not become possible for political reasons, sources said. The EU ban in 2007 finally brought the government to consideration to rebuild the fisheries sectors to take steps to revamp fishing vessels, auction halls, harbour infrastructure, besides pressurising the seafood processors to improve their units' standards.
According to an estimate, the country loses at least $50 million of seafood export every year because of the EU ban. The EU's ban on Pakistan's seafood export came in April 2007 by delisting 11 exporting seafood-processing plants, as the ban is still intact because the local concerned authorities have showed no progress in dispelling the union's bad impression.
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