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Ensure hygiene to reach Tk 100b export target

Altaf urges shrimp producers

STAR BUSINESS REPORT
Commerce Minister Altaf Hossain Choudhury yesterday urged the shrimp producers and exporters to follow the hygienic sanitation rule and good aquaculture practice at every stage of production to attain Tk 100 billion annual export target by 2010.
Besides, standard sanitary operational procedure, EU directives and US regulations in production should also be maintained, he added.
"These will help ensure safe shrimp production and earn more foreign currency," the minister said while addressing a seminar titled "Export Potential of Shrimp and Fish: Vision 2010 and Beyond".
Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA) organised the seminar in Dhaka on the occasion of National Fisheries Fortnight 2005. Fisheries and Livestock Minister Abdullah Al Noman, Commerce Ministry Advisor Barkat Ullah Bulu and BFFEA President Maksudur Rahman also spoke at the function.
Presiding over the seminar Noman said Tk 100 billion revenue
income from frozen foods export is possible by 2010 through increasing per hectare shrimp production as well as bringing more lands for shrimp cultivation.
The minister said he will hold an inter-ministerial meeting soon to allocate more new lands to the farmers for shrimp cultivation.
"Besides, the exporters also have to maintain HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) system to achieve the target," he added.
Noman said Bangladesh earned around Tk 2,572 crore by exporting 63,000 tonnes of shrimp in the last financial year. "But the earnings can be more than Tk 3,000 if the HACCP system is maintained properly."
Altaf also said the country's frozen food sector is passing through a hard time as the EU notified a number of Bangladeshi fish processing industries in its 'rapid alert list' following detection of antibiotic and pathogenic infection in shrimps and fish products.
He emphasised detecting the causes behind such infection in fish products. " We've to find out the causes of infection and develop the quality of our fish products if we
want to keep up with the existing upward export trend and achieve Tk 100 billion export target," Altaf added.
Fisheries and Livestock Secretary Abdul Karim said an inspection team from the EU will visit Bangladesh during the end of this year to inspect the local shrimp industry. In the circumstances, he urged the shrimp cultivators and exporters not to allow child labourers in their processing plants.
Mokammel Hossain, principal scientific officer of Department of Fisheries (DOF), and Rafiqul Islam, inspector of DOF, jointly presented a keynote paper on status of HACCP implementation in Bangladesh, while Mahmudul Hasan, former president of BFFEA, and ABM Mohiuddin, advisor to BFFEA, jointly presented another keynote paper on Vision 2010.
Now, US is the single largest importer of Bangladeshi frozen foods with a market share of 40 percent, while the European countries import 48 percent.