With falling temperature, seafood consumption is set to grow but its catch will reduce significantly during December and Jan, fishermen said on Tuesday. However, export of fresh fisheries to Kuwait and Dubai will continue to rise during the locally lean period. The trend of fish consumption is going to resume as weather turns colder in days to come, they said.
Seafood export grew by 6.10 percent or $7.008 million to $121.810 million in July-November period of current fiscal 2018 from $114.802 million in the same period last fiscal year 2017, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics shows. "Seafood catch will now start reducing once cold prevails over oceans," president Sindh Trawlers Owners and Fishermen Association (STOFA), Habibullah Khan Niazi told Business Recorder, saying that "fishing operations also declined for shortage of crew by almost 50 percent travels back to their hometowns in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa".
In term of quantity, seafood export scaled up to 46,311 metric tons in July-Sep period of current fiscal year 2018 from 40,871 metric tons in the same period last fiscal year 2017, showing an increase of 13.31 percent or 5440 metric tons, according to the statistics. "Catch landing also slowed down with main fish species, while shrimp is landing only with kiddi species to cater to local consumption," Niazi said. He said that the fishing season will take off again with weather warming in March to continue till late November mainly depends on the temperature. "If it is colder the chances for catch is lower," he said, adding that the shrimps catch starts from March till Sep. At present Surmai, Dandiya, Heera and Dothar are key species, which are landing though at a lower quality, he said.
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