There were near 85,123 fishermenworking on licensed vessels

The fishing community in Sarawak is a simple lot – they make barely enough income to make ends meet, yet they are willing to share their catch with strangers. Despite that, society have a rather low opinion the profession of our fishermen and views it’s a thankless and dead-end jobs. However, fishes and crustaceans form a very big part of our diet with this sector generating an income of RM5.38 billion worth of business in 2002. It is by no means, no small business and definitely not a “fry by night” kind of operations.

The Malaysian Fisheries Department (Lembaga Kemajuan Ikan Malaysia) is hoping that they can increase this sector’s contribution to our economy and also improve the community’s standard of living via the business especially for the smaller players. The department’s plans to increase the catch (in 2002, 1.462 million tones of fish were caught through both marine capture and aquaculture), promotes sustainable management of the resources, develop a dynamic fisheries industry, increase the income of fisheries operators and intensify the development of fisheries – based industries.

There were near 85,123 fishermen working on licensed vessels (31,870 vessels with the majority operating traditional gear) and 21, 160 fish culturists involved in various aquaculture systems. And this is not inclusive of the thousands more involved directly or indirectly in downstream activities and related industries. In Sarawak, A RM1 million fund has been allocated to Penesa (Persatuan Nelayan Sarawak) to help the fishing community to improve their income. With the latest membership of slightly over 8,000 fishermen as of the year 2004, Penesa hopes to promote projects that could encourage entrepreneurship among its members and share in the profits from these projects. The two profit-making ventures that Penesa is working on with its members are the capture fisheries project and the tiger prawn culture project.

Admittedly, not much is known about how much freshwater fishing contributes to fish production. However, the fishery department is now trying to find out the figures as this sub-sector is potentially important to make up for any reduction in marine production contribution.Fishing is big business In 2002, deep- sea fishing contributed 10% ( less 1% than 2001) of total fish production with a value of RM485million while aquaculture came in at a slightly higher
percentage of 13% of the total value of RM1.173bil. The traditional fishermen and inshore production were the main contributors with the total earning of 77% of total production with a value of RM3.725 billion.

In 2002, deep-sea fishingcontributed a value ofRM485 million

That means there is room for more involvement at big business especially in deep sea fishing and for the fishermen to undertake larger scale enterprise. Understanding its great potential to our economy, our government is giving out loans and financial assistance to our local fishermen through the fishermen’s associations such as Penesa and Lembaga Kemajuan Ikan Malaysia (LKIM).

There is huge potential in deep-sea fishing especially in the Indian Ocean.The fishermen can also join in to form a group, a cooperative or a consortium to absorb the high cost involved in deep sea fishing or for upgrading their vessels and operations. And there is nothing to stop them from selling the catch and cut out the middlemen. To help, bodies like the Fisheries Department, the Malaysian Fisheries Development (LKIM) and Bank Pertanian have come up with various grants, loans and incentives to provide financial assistance, training and technical support and advice to fishermen. In Sarawak, a special fishermen’s fund is being disbursed to members of Penesa towards this cause. The RM1 million fund to help launch local fishermen into commercial fishing is being effectively distributed to reach these groups.

Seed Money

The funds given by both the state and federal government would function as “seed money” to allow fishermen to expand their fishing activities in the government’s effort to modernize the agro-based industries. The sub sector of aquaculture and other fish commercial venture is touted by the Fishery Department to be the savior for the fishing industry and the plan is to increase production from 191,000 tonnes in 2002 to 607,000 tonnes in 2010 – the target set under the National Agricultural Policy 3.

Agriculture Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin says this year the Ministry has allocated RM10 million for aquaculture and to emphasise its importance, Muyiddin is heading a task force on the sector. Currently, only 5% of the sector is been exploited and over 490,000 ha has been identified for such projects. These include the big areas in Sarawak and Sabah where aquaculture has not been promoted much and where there is huge and promising profits to be tapped.

Overall fish exports stands at RM1.293 billion with imports at RM1.217billion in 2002. There is enough supply to meet local demand. So the industry has a huge potential to reduce our foreign earnings and food bill and the government hopes the trade balance will reach RM4billion in 2010 although at current projections there is likely to be shortfall of RM737million.

Training centre

Also in the pipeline is the proposed set-up of fishing industry training centre in Tanjung Manis , Sarikei. The centre, the first of its kind in the state will be a venue to train local fishermen in deep sea fishing and the management of various related fields such as aquaculture, processing plant or cottage industry to ensure they are equipped with the necessary skills and know-how as entrepreneurs. With proper training, our local fishermen will have a greater chance of succeeding in securing a place in this industry thus be able to improve their living standard in society. The government is doing its utmost for
these people but it is still up to them to take advantage of the opportunity by working heard and learning more about the ropes of the business.