Burma’s fishing industry has failed to find the kind of recovery it hoped for this financial year after being severely affected by Cyclone Nargis and the global economic downturn in 2008-09, officials and merchants say.
The fishery sector’s export earnings target was US$700 million for the 2009-10 financial year but the actual year-end figure reached US$496 million at the end of March, 30 per cent short of the goal, government figures show.
It is the sector’s fourth annual shortfall in a row, but until the 2007-08 financial year, Burma’s fisheries were the fourth largest foreign-exchange earners, always registering positive annual growth. The slide started in 2008-09 when earnings of US$483 million represented just 56 per cent of the target and a 15 per cent drop year on year from the US$569 million earned in 2007-08.
The government’s fisheries department, the Burma Fisheries Federation and exporters, blame Cyclone Nargis and the global economic downturn for the negative growth rate in exports for 2008-09.
While this year’s export figure is US$13 million more than the last, worst-hit, financial year, it is a US$73 million drop on export earnings for 2007-08.
But by export value according to smaller targets at border trading posts, results were somewhat more promising.
“This year export value [of fishery products] was more than last year. The export value in normal and border trading was more than the previous year’s figure. Among the eight border trading posts, the export value from Myeik (Mergui) … reached US$7 million more than the export target”, a Department of Fisheries director said.
Many businessmen said the global economic downturn had made a considerable impact on Burmese fishery exports but that the rapidly growing competition from neighbouring countries such as Thailand and India and, other regional players such as Vietnam and Malaysia, was another factor for the negative growth rate.
Besides the usual markets for Burmese fishery products in China, Asean member countries and some Middle Eastern countries, the Fisheries Department and the Burma Fisheries Federation are trying to expand exports into the European Union. But this bid has met with only partial success.
Southeast Asian countries including Burma are having difficulties complying with EU standards on raw materials and technology at stages of production, cold storage, packaging and exporting the finished products.
“There are two main points in our sector. The market demand in EU countries is high but so are their standards. Even Malaysia and Thailand, whose fishery industries are far more developed than Burma’s, cannot yet comply with all of the EU standards and specifications,” a cold-storage plant owner told Mizzima.
The businessmen also blamed exchange-rate fluctuations and falling fish prices since last year for the drop in the Burmese export figures. Appreciation of the Burmese currency (Kyat) earned for fishery product exports at quotations in sales agreements hardly helped exporters as prices fell, they said.
Starting from January 1, some Burmese fishery products could be exported to 27 EU countries but both trade volume and export value remained low, according to fisheries traders.
In this year, US$306 million has been earned from normal and border trade, US$140 million of which has been made at Myeik (Mergui) southern sea port and Muse, near Ruili in Yunnan, China. Other border trading posts are Myawaddy opposite Mae Sot, Thailand; Kawthaung near Ranong, Thailand; Sittwe (Akyab) port on the Bay of Bengal, Thandwe (Sandoway), also on the west coast; Maungdaw, across the Naf River from Teknaf; and, Tamu, across the border from Moreh, India.
Besides these eight border trading posts, a new gateway at Kampaiti in Kachin State was opened for exports to China but it was unsuitable for fishery products because of distance from producers and poor road connections.
“Some exported eels from Kampaiti, but despite the higher prices attained, the death rate of eels was too high on this route so exporters returned to using the Muse border post,” an eel exporter from Mandalay said.
As for progress in the industry, crab breeding represented significant earnings. Large scale exports made Burma one of the biggest crab-exporting countries in the world, sources said. The new export item, soft-shell crab, was successfully cultured and bred in mass-scale production ventures out of Irrawaddy and Rangoon Divisions, to earn more than US$8 million.
The Burma Fisheries Federation, which comprises the Fishery Department and the private sector, is striving for the development of fishery production and export but they face difficulties.
Some fisheries businessmen and experts estimated that the export figure for 2010-11 would grow year on year, but drastic positive growth was as yet unattainable.
“The export target is fixed jointly by Ministry of Livestock Breeding and Fisheries and private businessmen, and is usually higher than the actual possible figure,” an executive member of the Burma Fisheries Federation said. “At first this target figure was fixed at US$800 million and then reduced to US$700 million after complaints from producers and businessmen. In our estimate, the figure for the coming financial year can’t be more than the figure for 2007 they figure maybe between US$550 million and US$600 million”.
