Sri Lanka’s seafood industry is eyeing a target of US $ 1 billion in seafood export revenue with major local sea food exporting companies are expanding its vlaude added production for the export market.
Under this initiative, Global Ceylon SeaFoods (Pvt) Ltd., leading seafood exporting company in Sri Lanka inked an agreement with the Board of Investment (BOI) to set up a sea cage farming project for the export market in Trincomalee, for an investment of US$ 7.5 Mn.
The agreement in this regard was signed in the presence of Investment Promotion State Minister Dilum Amunugama, BOI Chairman Raja Edirisuriya, Director General Renuka M Weerakone and Global Ceylon SeaFoods Director Per Marius Arntsen at the newly unveiled Investor Facilitation Centre (IFC) on Friday (28).
The newly signed project is to generate nearly 100 employment opportunities.
Global Sea Foods (Pvt) Ltd, known simply as GSF is a leading seafood processing company based in Sri Lanka.
The company is a BOI approved venture established in 1999, that supplies the high quality Value Added Sea Food products to destinations such as Europe, USA, Middle East and Japan to name a few. GSF can be identified as a significant source of foreign exchange income earner in Sri Lanka
Speaking at the occasion, State Minister Amunugama said,” This marks the first agreement to be signed at the IFC, which was set up to expedite and streamline investment approval process while strengthening the coordination with respective line ministries,”
Seafood Exporters’ Association of Sri Lanka (SEASL) revealed that seafood exports were estimated to have, a growth of 24 percent compared to last year.
It announced that two varieties of Sri Lankan fish recommended, for the first time ever, to consumers, retailers and to the global seafood industry as a good alternative by North America’s leading seafood rating agency for sustainable practices, Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch.
Blue swimming crab in the Gulf of Mannar and in Palk Bay was moved from a red ‘Avoid’ ranking to a yellow ‘Good Alternative’ rating by the agency, following the implementation of parallel Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) which was targeted at influencing fishermen for more sustainable practices, through an investment of US $450,000 made by various international and local organisations.
These were also the first fish type in Sri Lanka and the only blue swimming crab category in South and South East Asia to be recommended by Seafood Watch.
According to SEASL , the final export destination for Sri Lanka’s 90-99 percent of sea crab is United States, while Singapore remains as a major export market for lagoon crab.
With new rankings, Sri Lankan exporters will be able to get premium prices, and with the exporters paying more to fishermen, more fishermen will resort to crab farming.
It emphasized that the industry would focus more on shrimp farming to reach the US $1 billion export target in three years.
Sri Lanka has a pilot project ongoing in a 50-acre land in the Northern Province; it will be soon go into the commercial stage.
Sri Lanka will be able to boost its shrimp yield by nearly tenfold from the current yield, once the project reaches the commercial stage.
The government already has given the seafood industry a 500-acre land in the Northern Province for shrimp farming, and said that there will be more land available for the private sector.
