The Treasurer of the All Ceylon Fisheries Association, Amarasiri Sunil Fernando said yesterday, said that the drawback of increasing fish exports was the high prices of diesel which prevented the industry from going to the international seas.
He said that the Government should reduce the fuel prices so that fish exports could be increased, he told Daily News Finance, adding that the Association could supply whatever increase in the future demand arose.
He said that that was an earlier occasion that they had met Secretary to the President Dr. P.B. Jayasundera who was earlier Treasury Secretary during the Mahinda Rajapaksa Presidency and made written representations to lower the cost of diesel which has still not been done. Now, we have made an appointment to see President Gotabaya Rajapaksa himself, he said.
He said that each time that the members of his association visit the international seas, which is as far as Somalia and the Saudi Arabian seas the cost of the trip which is often around Rs. 2 Million as these are multi- day trawlers and they engage in trips lasting from 45-50 days.
He explained that the capacity of each boat was about 9,000 -10,000 litres of fuel and some going up to even 11,000 litres and the industry was more viable if the cost of the price of diesel was reduced to around Rs. 60 per litre from the current Rs. 104. “This should have been done at a time the oil prices were reducing in the world market, he said.
He also proposed that the Government provide concessionary bank loans for the development of the boat building industry which he said, would be ideally between 4-5% as there was huge scope for the development of the industry.
Some of the other incentives, he said , which could be used to develop the industry, would be to provide tax rebates for the import of brand new boat engines and also get local manufacturers to make the fish bait which is milk fish, which is currently imported from Indonesia which is around US $ 80 million which spent per month.
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