July 27, 2010

Bangladesh urges more public private collaboration in agriculture

Bangladesh's Finance Minister AMA Muhith has advocated bigger role of Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives in the country's agriculture sector, including fisheries.

"The role of PPP is generally in the infrastructure sector but it should be expanded to other sectors. The PPP is very limited; in fact it is not evident in agriculture and fisheries," he said, when inaugurating the National Fisheries Fair 2010 at the Krishibid Institution in the city.

Fisheries Minister Abdul Latif Biswas was the special guest at the function, chaired by Fisheries and Livestock secretary M Sharful Alam. Director General of Fisheries Department M Mahbubur Rahman Khan gave the welcome address.

Muhith said that the future of the country depends on PPP, as its greater role can extend the country's overall investment to 30-35% from the present 24%.

The Finance Minister informed that the new fisheries survey would be conducted soon. Steps will be taken to get separate information on fisheries and livestock in the next agriculture survey, he said.

Mentioning that some 54 out of 260 local species of fish have already become extinct, he emphasised providing assistance for fish breeding and protecting fish fry as well as the water bodies.

Muhith urged the Fisheries Ministry to take steps for halting any further extinction of local varieties of fish and also to check cultivation of harmful foreign fish like piranha.

According to the statistics provided by the Fisheries Department, the total fish production in the 2008-09 fiscal was 2,701,370 tonnes with a contribution of 3.74% to the GDP. Some 72,888 tonnes of fishes worth BDT3,243.41 crore (US$465.7 million) were exported to different countries during the period contributing 3% to the overall export earnings.