Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-12-05

Allocation of lands on Lease Basis for a farming project of Milkfish (Chanos Chanos)

- In the long line fishing method used for harvesting the major commodities of Sri Lankan fish exports such as Tuna and Bill Fish, Squids, Milkfish and Gold Strip Sardinella are used as baits. Though about 7,000 MT of baits are required for the purpose annually, only around 3,000 MT of the same is satisfied locally. Since, more baits have to be imported the price of the major domestic commodities of fish exports rise and causes adverse effects on imposing a competitive price for those products in the International Market.

It will be beneficial to produce milkfish (Chanos Chanos) at commercial level to be used as bait as well as for human consumption and it may lead to saving a some amount of foreign currency out of over of Rs.01 billion spent annually for the importation of baits. The All Island Multiday Fishing Vessels Owners' Association has presented a project proposal for conducting intensive farming of milkfish. As such, the proposal made by Hon. Mahinda Amaraweera, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, to grant a block of land 12.14 hectares in extent located in Bangadeniya in the District of Puttalam, belonging to the National Aquaculture Development Authority of Sri Lanka (NAQDA), on lease basis, to the said Association for the implementation of the project by the National Aquaculture Development Authority of Sri Lanka as the Government Partner on Public-Private Partnership basis, subject to carrying out a specific environmental impact assessment, was approved by the Cabinet.