"This morning's workshop represents a timely initiative to underpin the importance the ministry attaches to the aquaculture business in driving Brunei's ambition to be more self-sufficient domestically, to position itself in the niche export market in the medium term, and to realise Brunei's position as one of the centres of excellence in aquaculture technology and services.
"This will benefit not only our domestic producers, but hopefully also shrimp farmers in neighbouring countries.
`Brunei is now developing an aquaculture park called Telisai Phase II where it is hoped some of these new technologies will be implemented. The workshop participants will be visiting this site today.
"The forecast currently is that the fisheries potential of Brunei Darussalam is estimated to be worth at least $200 million per year, whilst the country' is still importing about 50% of its fish requirements, which is linked to 45 kg/yr per person, i.e 16 million tonnes per year, one of the highest in Asean. This is two times more than Fishery Gross output today.
"Given the size of our territorial water, we feel that one of the more promising growth areas for sustainable development is less in captured fishery (2005 88% total Fishery, B$100million) and more in the aquaculture sector (2005 = 5% whilst Seafood processed = 7%) with a potential worth of B$71 million per annum based on the existing available sites.
This is 14 times more than current aquaculture businesses. "Setting up a state-of-the-art Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory is a priority.
"The Department of Fisheries is enhancing regulatory oversight of the sector and encouraging increasing participation of producers and their associations in the decision-making and self-regulation process.
"These factors are all contributing to improved productivity of the sector through implementation of `better site-management' practices
"To improve the competitiveness of local shrimp farmers, the Department of Fisheries has initiated a three-year renewable project with Integrated Aquaculture International, a US-based aquaculture technology company.
Source: BruneiDirect.com