Barely 34 years old, he is a fine example of a successful Malay entrepreneur, hauling a monthly harvest of 60 metric tonnes of Chinese carp, pangasius (patin), catfish and sultan (jelawat) fish.
His foray into the venture 10 years ago was scoffed at by his friends and villagers for leaving a good job at a local bank.
"I was the subject of ridicule and derision, now they have got to eat the humble pie," he told Bernama when met at his fish farms at Kampung Bilok Banggu, his birth place, here.
"My friends then preferred to be wage earners while I decided to go into the aquaculture business. They were not wrong for chiding me because becoming wage earners was safer compared to the risk I had to take in business," he said while harvesting the fish for a wholesaler from Pahang.
"At the outset, some of them asked me whether I could feed my family by merely breeding fish because it is not an easy task in the face of competition from other businessmen from outside Kelantan. But it did not dampen my spirit," he said.
After years of toiling, Raja Zakaria has now tasted success. From a modest beginning of two ponds with a start-up capital of RM3,000, he now has 30 concrete ponds and 13 clay ponds as well as fish in cages in the irrigation canal.
Source: Bernama