Tuesday, 11th November 2014
Indunil Hewage (indunil.hewage@gmail.com)
In spite of market turbulences, Sri Lanka’s ornamental fish exports to the European Union (EU) has increased with an annual growth rate of 10% over the last five years, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Minister Rajitha Senaratne said.
He made these views addressing the First Ornamental Fish Trade Conference 2014 which began in Colombo yesterday. Sri Lanka commands over 2% market share in the global ornamental fish industry exporting to more than 40 countries.Major buyers include countries such as Argentina, Canada and the USA.
“We have seen a significant expansion in the domestic ornamental fish segment as well. Our collective efforts with the industry have resulted in the steady growth of our total ornamental fish exports from Rs 1,350 million in 2013 from Rs 1,500 million upto September 2014. However, much more has to be done in water management, nutrition and disease management, selective breeding and genetic enhancement if we need to further increase our share in the global market,” Senaratne said.
Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said the ornamental fish sector has been identified as an important sector of economy in terms of employment generation and foreign exchange earnings. Some of the native fish varieties are threatened with extinction. The government has taken steps to tackle this issue. Out of 90 varieties of fresh water fish, 50 are considered to be endemic to Sri Lanka.
“The government will intervene in securing new technology to provide information and incentives to medium and small scale ornamental fish entrepreneurs to access the international market under the budget proposals. Total value of these initiatives are almost close to US$ 2 million. These initiatives include safeguarding aquaculture thereby increasing inland fishery production to 20% total fish production, assisting SME entrepreneurs to develop their aquaculture farms and develop thousands inland fish farm villages in selected areas. EDB has also six ornamental fishery projects in Polonnaruwa district to expand this base.Considering these initiatives,there is no need to worry about our fish varieties going into red list.” Bathiudeen said.
This sector has become a trend setter in our journey becoming a premium product supplier to the high end of the market. There is a need to enhance the value chain to boost international earnings in a better manner.
We are making progress towards realizing this potential; Sri Lanka is able to supply diverse variety of ornamental fish ranging from marine waters to brackish waters fish. Some 40 regular export companies in Sri Lanka have successfully taken 2.7 % share out of US$ 400 million global market. In 2013 Sri Lanka exported US$ 10.7 million of ornamental fish, which is an increase of strong 41% from 2012 exports. USA, UK, Japan, Germany and France were top five buyers in 2013.
Promising new global markets have begun opened for our products in 2013. The promising and profitable new markets come from the Middle East such as Qatar, Iran and Lebanon who have strongly increased their demand for ornamental fish products.
Export Development Board Chairman and CEO Bandula Egodage said, Sri Lanka prefers to have an export driven economy ;our export growth all the time maintained over 10 % growth every month. EDB has implemented many initiatives and is assisting quarantine and quality improvement projects under budget proposals for 26 main exporters.
From : http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=business/surge-orna-fish-exports-year
