The government moves to procure another survey vessel to get to know the status of maritime resources in the Bay, fisheries and livestock minister Muhammed Sayedul Hoque said Wednesday.
"The blue economy can boost our GDP (Gross Domestic Product)," the minister said while speaking as the chief guest at a workshop in the city organized by Bangladesh Marine Fisheries Capacity Building Project.
The minister said a survey vessel will be added next year and the ministry has completed all the formalities for getting another survey vessel which is waiting for the approval of the Prime Minister.
Narayan Chandra Chand, state minister to MoFL while speaking as special guest said nearly 0.5 million people are involved in fishing in the bay while the sea fish contributed 17 per cent to the total fish output of 3.45 million tonnes.
He also noted that new survey vessels will be bought under the Bangladesh Marine Fisheries Capacity Building Project (BMFCB) next year.
Prof Dr Md Abdul Wahab, Department of Fisheries Management at Bangladesh Agricultural University said Hilsa production can be raised to 0.5 million tonnes from the present 0.4 million tonnes (FY'14) by adopting and scientific conservation methodology.
"The Hilsa catch will be of 0.5 million tonnes in a year if fishermen refrain from catching Jatka (Hilsa under 27 cm)," he said.
He said the country needs to promote industrial fishing trawler and long line fishing to catch high-valued varieties like Salmon, Tuna, Herring, Kipper, Mackerel, Sardine and Swordfish from the deep sea.
He said: "And doing so, we need intensive study over resources in the Bay of Bengal as the concept of blue economy is still unknown to many of the people and businessmen."
"We have to classify the fishing zones based on the biodiversity of the sea," he suggested.
Director General of DoF Dr Syed Arif Azad chaired the inaugural session of the workshop.
In his address, he said Bangladesh could benefit largely from the blessings of blue economy as did many developed countries in the world.
"We have to develop expertise and skilled manpower to explore the resources like high-valued fishes, energy, heavy minerals and so on," he said.
MoFL secretary Shelina Afroz, Director General of Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) Muhammad Zaher, national project director of BMFCB ABM Anwarul Hoque, among others spoke.
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