Find Fisheries expertise in Bangladesh

Fisheries, together with agriculture and forestry, contribute 19% to Bangladesh’s GDP (2008), while fisheries alone contribute about 4% to the country’s GDP (2011). The fisheries sector is a crucial source of employment in Bangladesh providing employment for 1.2 million fishermen and crew on boats, as well as over 12 million jobs indirectly through the sale and distribution of fish.  While the industry may only contribute about 4% to the GDP, it accounts for nearly 10% of employment in Bangladesh. Approximately 97% of inland catch is marketed internally for domestic consumption while the remaining 3% is exported to the EU, USA, UK, Japan, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and other developed countries.

The sector can be broadly divided into four major sub-sectors: inland capture, inland culture, marine industrial (trawling) fisheries and marine artisanal fisheries. Despite the abundance of marine waters and a coastline of 580km, only about 18% of total fish production comes from the marine sector. The vast majority (82%) of capture comes from inland fisheries, nearly half (41%) of which is from rivers and their tributaries, estuaries, the Sundarban mangrove forest area, permanent wetlands called beel and seasonal flood plains. The remaining catch is from closed water bodies such as ponds and ditches, ox-bow lakes, and shrimp and fish farms. The catch profile for inland fisheries is largely indigenous species (45%), followed by major carp (28%), exotic carp (14%), large and small shrimps (9%), and Ilish fishes (4%).

Marine fisheries are dominated by artisanal fisheries who account for over nine tenths (93%) of marine catch. The catch profile for marine fisheries consists mainly of marine Ilsha, shrimp, Bombay duck, Jew fishes, catfish, pomfret, sharks and rays and miscellaneous marine fishes. The small industrial sub-sector’s catch profile is essentially the same, except about a third of the trawlers target shrimp.

Fisheries organisations in Bangladesh
Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock
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