PESHAWAR: Aquaculture industry has potential to generate billions of US dollars through export beside provision of support of employment to the youth of rural areas in the country and source of income for the investors.
Talking to this scribe, Omar Hayat Khan, an expert on the aquaculture and environment stressed need for diverting political attention of both federal and provincial governments towards aquaculture and fisheries to attract investment through providing enabling environment to investors.
Presently, he said the aquaculture activities in Pakistan are either subsistence level or on small scale and commercial aquaculture has yet to take time to develop for export as compared to the sector in Iran and Turkey and India.
All these neighboring countries are not only producing fish and fisheries products for home consumption as well as surplus for exports. This has been made possible by providing enabling environment to the private sector for investment and development of aquaculture activities on commercial level.
Khan, who had served in KP Fisheries Department for a period of three decade said that neither federal nor the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have included any supporting initiative for the aquaculture activities in their budgets for the fiscal year 2024-25. He said that the federal government should have taken a lead in acceptance of onus to provide incentive to the aquaculture businesses in a number of ways through tax exemptions on fish feed and fish feed ingredients at local level as an input for production.
The private sector should have been encouraged to set up new commercial scale aquaculture facilities for export to respective countries as per their requirements. Specifically, tax exemptions should have been mentioned in the budget speeches of the provinces as well as at federal budget.
He has proposed to the government of Pakistan to follow the Japanese model of export led-development where in the local human resources are provided enabling environment to develop their capacity though education and specific training for export lead. Production of commodities and inputs are procured from other countries and value is added and exported according to the demand of that country. This model is providing employment to the local population as well as source of income and a source of foreign exchange for the country.
While following the Japanese model, he said Pakistan is no exception to attract foreign direct investment can be attracted for commercialization of aquaculture to produce fish as per requirement of importing country as per their requirements.
He said that Pakistan has the renewable aquatic resources along with suitable environmental zones to produce diversified fish and fisheries products from fresh water, brackish water as well as marine water.
Federal and Provincial Governments are focusing on Agriculture Development through new interventions and Aquaculture is part of sub sector of Agriculture.
It should also be given its due place in the development process to bring it at par at best international practices and its productivity be brought to international standards. Fisheries Departments at Provincial levels needs reorganization is such a manner that it is aligned to new vision of export led development.
The human resources are in place as well financial resources but the working is on the same old practices which need to be changed through coordination of relevant departments and stakeholders.
The expert said that the Ministry of Food Security and Research, Government of Pakistan has Fisheries Development Board, Islamabad its sub ordinate organization similarly Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of Pakistan has its sub ordinate organization Small and Medium Development Authority which can play a pivotal role in according to their mandate to align the Aquaculture activities throughout Pakistan in collaboration with provincial fisheries department and Non-Government Organizations such as Rural Development Organizations.
The Support of donors will also be forth coming if the local small businesses of aquaculture are organized on appropriate lines based on export led development and production of fish.
Similarly, he said that the Provincial Government Fisheries Department in all the provinces has Fish Multiplication Infrastructure and Staff for production of fish seed. However, the quality of fish seed has to be improved based on scientific management of brood stock available at these facilities.
He further stressed need for creating awareness in the private sector investors regarding the potential of the aquaculture and its export by the Boards of Investment of the respective provinces. The Board of Investment has to be up dated by concerned departments at Federal level as provincial level.
The task has to be mandated by Federal Government of coordination to the concerned ministry with financial resources. The Federal Government has to inform the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) to take appropriate measures for this coordinate programme to tap the unutilized utilized resources of Pakistan for the benefit of its people.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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