Myanmar to hold marine products festival
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
YANGON, Dec 17 (Xinhua): Myanmar will hold a marine products festival to help boost production and exports of the sector, according to the Myanmar Fisheries Federation (MFF) today.
Running from Dec. 30, 2007 through to Jan. 4, 2008, the six- day Myanmar Marine Products Festival, sponsored by the federation, will feature some seafood, various types of cuisine and cooking methods.
According to official statistics, Myanmar's fishery sector stood the fourth largest contributor to the country's gross domestic product and also the fourth largest source of foreign exchange earning in the past five years.
It exported 104,900 tons of fish and 20,500 tons of prawn in the fiscal year 2006-07 which ended in March with the export value hitting 231 million US dollars, up 19 per cent from 2005- 06's 194 million dollars, according to the Central Statistical Organisation.
The country is striving to increase the export value sharply in the present fiscal year of 2007-08 in the light of rising foreign market demand for the products.
To promote the development of the fishery sector, Myanmar encourages the establishment of more fishery companies to produce and export quality fishery products to the international fish and prawn market for market competition, especially through border trade with neighboring China and Thailand.
Of the line-up of Myanmar's top-10 marine exporting countries, China has stood first for the past eight consecutive years since 1998-99, local reports said.
With a long coastline of over 2,800 km and a total area of 500, 000 hectares of swamps along the coast, Myanmar has an estimated sustainable yield of marine products of over one million tons a year.
Running from Dec. 30, 2007 through to Jan. 4, 2008, the six- day Myanmar Marine Products Festival, sponsored by the federation, will feature some seafood, various types of cuisine and cooking methods.
According to official statistics, Myanmar's fishery sector stood the fourth largest contributor to the country's gross domestic product and also the fourth largest source of foreign exchange earning in the past five years.
It exported 104,900 tons of fish and 20,500 tons of prawn in the fiscal year 2006-07 which ended in March with the export value hitting 231 million US dollars, up 19 per cent from 2005- 06's 194 million dollars, according to the Central Statistical Organisation.
The country is striving to increase the export value sharply in the present fiscal year of 2007-08 in the light of rising foreign market demand for the products.
To promote the development of the fishery sector, Myanmar encourages the establishment of more fishery companies to produce and export quality fishery products to the international fish and prawn market for market competition, especially through border trade with neighboring China and Thailand.
Of the line-up of Myanmar's top-10 marine exporting countries, China has stood first for the past eight consecutive years since 1998-99, local reports said.
With a long coastline of over 2,800 km and a total area of 500, 000 hectares of swamps along the coast, Myanmar has an estimated sustainable yield of marine products of over one million tons a year.