Brunei's
Fisheries has Growth Potential
JERUDONG, 10
November 2006,
Friday - Regional fisheries officials said yesterday that Brunei
Darussalam has the potential to develop its fisheries further despite
the fact that it has limited fishing vessels.
"There is a lot of
potential for Brunei's Fisheries Department to venture into the foreign
market as they have fishes that are of high value in the aquaculture
business, of the cultivation of the natural producers water in fishes,"
Suriyan Vichitlekarn, policy and programme coordinator of the Southeast
Asian Fisheries Development Centre told The Brunei Times.
"In terms of sea-based
production or marine' capture fisheries, Brunei has limited entry to the
sea due to the oil and gas industry but because Brunei is strategically
located in the region, there is definitely a potential for Brunei to tap
into the international market," he said.
Vichitlekarn was speaking
at the sidelines of a three-day regional workshop on human resource
development for fisheries. It has been estimated by the Department of
Fisheries at the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources that the
value of the fisheries industry in Brunei is $200 million per year on a
sustainable basis.
However, Siri Ekmaharaj,
secretary general of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Centre,
said that Brunei Darussalam had limited fishing vessels.
"This fact can affect the
decision for foreigners to tap into the Brunei market," he said.
"One of the major needs of
the fisheries sector is to develop through capacity building."
Participants of the regional workshop proposed the development of small
and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the fisheries sector to include a
logistic system, promoting community organisation, cooperation with
commercial enterprises as well as strengthening SMEs business planning.
The workshop also concluded
that governments played a critical role in developing policies that will
support the future progress of the small and medium fisheries
enterprises.
The workshop, which took
place at the Holiday Lodge Hotel in Jerudong, urged governments to find
strategies of support from funding agencies to implement follow-up
activities with technical advisory assistance from the Southeast Asian
Fisheries Development Centre.
Vichitlekam said the focus
of the workshop was to bring various delegates working together to help
SMEs who were not financially-equipped in the fisheries sector.
"There is a focus on SMEs
because the fisheries community in the BIMP-EAGA region is rather small
in scale and they need support in the international market, "he said.
Some 35 representatives
from Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines East
Asean Growth Area grouping, (BIMP-EAGA), attended the workshop.
Mr Vichitlekarn, who is
based in Thailand, added that there was a need for capacity building to
ensure that these SMEs had the ability to meet the requirements of
expanding their businesses.
Other outcomes of the
workshop include human resource development support in community
empowerment of fisheries SMEs, coastal resources management, acquiring
techniques of capture fisheries, aquaculture and post-harvest
processing.
It is hoped that the
recommendations brought up during the workshop would be followed up at
future BIMP-EAGA collaborative gatherings.
The three-day, workshop is
a two-year project named `Human Resources Development for Sustainable
Development of Fisheries' and implemented with funding from the Asean-Japan
Solidarity Fund.
The workshop is jointly
organised by Southeast Asian Fisheries Department Centre and Fisheries
Department of Brunei.
- Courtesy of
Brunei Times -
