Speakers at a discussion meeting expressed Saturday their frustration over the failure to tap the country's living and non-living marine resources for want of technology and skilled manpower.
They suggested working out some strategic plans for developing the country's capacity, both in terms of human resources and technological know-how, for harnessing the resources the ownership of which was secured through international arbitration.
Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Dr Gowher Rizvi, who attended the programme as chief guest, also underscored the need for building necessary technological capacity as well as developing human resources.
He urged the private sector to take the lead in this new economic turf.
"There is substantial potentiality. To explore the potentiality the country needs an extensive partnership with the government and the private sector should come forward in this regard," said the adviser.
And this venture must be participatory, transparent and reciprocal, he said.
The government, the adviser told his business audience, will have to regulate something but it must work with private sector and will extend all necessary help like the IT sector in India.
The Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dhaka (MCCI) organised the discussion on 'Blue Economy: Exploring Marine Resources of Bangladesh' in collaboration with The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), Bangladesh Council.
The adviser said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is committed to exploring the huge potential of the sea and sea resources through proper management to ensure sustainable economic development of the country.
To develop human resources and import technology to exploit the resources, he stressed the need for private partnership as well as collaboration with expert countries.
Held in the MCCI conference room, the meeting was also addressed, among others, by former secretary Karar Mahmudul Hasan, ambassador Ashfaqur Rahman, ICB Managing Director Md. Fayekuzzaman, Western Marine Shipyard Ltd Chairman Md. Saiful Islam, Mutual Trust Bank Limited Managing Director and CEO Anis A Khan and MCCI member Kamran T. Rahman.
Secretary, Maritime Affairs Unit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rear Admiral (retd) M. Khurshed Alam and MCCI president Syed Nasim Manzur presented keynote papers on 'Blue Economy: Exploring Marine Resources of Bangladesh' and 'Marine Boundary and Opportunities of Blue Economy for Bangladesh' respectively.
Mr Nasim in his keynote pointed out that Dhaka established its sovereign rights through international court verdicts on more than 118,000 square kilometres of maritime territory, 200 nautical miles (NM) of exclusive economic zone, and 354NM continental shelf from the Chittagong coast. And it has raised the hope of extracting "plenty of resources" from the Bay of Bengal.
But he regretted that the country did not have skilled manpower, extensive research, technological capacity and knowledge in oceanography to exploit the resources.
The leader of the elite chamber body also listed dearth of data regarding phytoplankton, or occurrence of bioactive molecules and emphasized the need for proper surveys in the field of marine aquatic products, materials for biotechnology, sand, gravel, oil, gas, copper, magnesium, nickel and precious metals, including cobalt.
He also pointed out how India, China and other ocean-rim countries were netting benefit through mutual cooperation among themselves.
In this context, the MCCI president underscored the need for both technical cooperation and FDI from nations like Japan, India, Canada, the Philippines and South Africa.
According to Mr Nasim, globally 350 million jobs are linked to marine fisheries, with 90 per cent of fishers living in developing countries.
Dwelling on the long history of how Bangladesh conquered the maritime front, Rear Admiral Khurshed Alam also stressed the need for rearing marine scientists and developing capacity to explore resources with adequate skilled manpower.
To build skilled manpower in these sectors, speakers at the meeting urged the government to take steps to impart higher education on oceanography at the countries public universities.
They also called for strengthening navy and coast guards to protect the sea resources and increasing capacity of private sector to build ocean-going vessels.
Some of the participants complained that trawler owners filed a case in court to bar the big trawlers from going into deep sea for fishing.
At present some 200 trawlers and 60,000 mechanized and non-mechanized boats are engaged in fishing in the Bay.
However, fishing is only confined within 200-metre depth of the Bay, whose pelagic (living in the upper layer) and deep-sea resources are still untapped.
In the fiscal year 2012-13, fish production from marine sources was 0.589 million tonnes, which accounts for 17 per cent of the country's total fish production of 3.4 million tones.
"About 500,000 people are dependent directly or indirectly on the sector," Mr Nasim Manzur told the business meet on the prospects of an unfolding vast sector of blue economy.
According to marine experts, there are around 511 species of fish, including 36 species of shrimps, in Bangladesh's marine fishing ground.
Of these, only about 30 species, which constitute around 25 per cent of the possible fish stock in the Bay, are netted.
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Exploitation of \\\'Blue Economy\\\' still a problem
FE Report | Published: May 24, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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