Shrimp industry seeks particular financial aid
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The country’s shrimp industry leaders have demanded a particular financial package and duty exemption on imported aqua inputs to salvage the industry from the crisis they said the sector was sliding into due to the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and the recent cyclone Amphan.
Three organisations representing the shrimp industry - the Bangladesh Shrimp and Fish Foundation, the Bangladesh Aqua Items Businesses Association and the Shrimp Hatchery Association of Bangladesh - on Tuesday sent a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office seeking financial assistance and duty exemption on imported aqua and farm inputs in the upcoming budget.
‘The stakeholders and industry leaders invited the attention of the government to the actual fact that immediate and urgent assistance packages would be particularly needed and helpful now that the farmers at the grow-out level are finding your way through another production cycle for the black tiger shrimp which accounts for more than 90 % of the export of the fisheries products of Bangladesh,’ the letter read.
The letter said that the shrimp industry contributed substantially to the country’s gross domestic product, employment generation, poverty eradication and export earnings nonetheless it had come under severe strain over the last three months due to the pandemic and the recent cyclone Amphan.
During Amphan, great expanses of water bodies in the southwestern portion of the country had been flooded, infrastructure had been destroyed, farm establishments were dismantled and enclosures and ponds were badly damaged, the sector leaders said.
They said in the letter that the shrimp farmers in the influenced areas had been rendered struggling to freshly prepare their enclosures and ponds, procure post larval shrimps and other inputs because they had very little money of their own and 90 per cent of these had no usage of bank loans.
‘In order to greatly help the influenced shrimp farmers to rehabilitate their ponds and ghers and for urgent procurement of PLs and additional inputs necessary for the shrimp production in the next creation cycle, financial assistance might kindly come to be extended to the shrimp farmers and for this purpose the federal government may allocate satisfactory resources,’ the letter read.
The BSFF, SHAB and BAPCA urged the federal government to waive the import duty on feed and other inputs used in the sector at least for another two years.
The industry leaders also urged the government to fix the utmost retail price for imported inputs so that the benefits of the work exemption can be reaped by using the users in hatcheries and farms.
They also demanded the removal of the prevailing complexities and facilitation of smooth customs clearance of imported aqua inputs.
Source: https://www.newagebd.net
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