Talks between 14 local fishery producers and delegates from Netherlands are underway to form joint ventures in specific production chains of the fishery industry, according to the Myanmar Fisheries Federation (MFF).
“We are discussing the preparations to meet the quality and safety standards of the European Union to be able to export to the EU market in a large quantity. It is still not clear how much investment will go into which parts of the industry and relevant stakeholders are still in discussions,” said U Han Tun, vice chairperson of MFF.
Experts from the Netherlands are currently inspecting the fish ponds, prawn ponds, fish processing facilities and fish capturing businesses in Myanmar.
The Netherlands possesses advanced technologies especially in rearing brood fish, modern infrastructure and equipment, so collaborating with the Dutch producers will bring many benefits to the local industry, said U Han Tun.
“[The Netherlands’] population is low so the country has a relatively low workforce. Their fisheries apply state-of-the-art technologies and automatic digital solutions in many production stages such as spawning and rearing. Our industry is labour-oriented so we might need to consider the effect on our workers when we can access such modern technologies,” said U Win Kyaing, secretary of MFF.
MFF said it also recently talked with representatives from Norway on jointly operating fish hatcheries and rearing facilities.
Myanmar has 450,000 acres of aquaculture operations while products from the country’s 19 processing plants together with other fishery products are exported to China, Middle East and the EU.
