Local fish factories needs to be completed as soon as possible to increase productivity: MP Bonde

Member of Parliament for Central Maafannu Constituency Ibrahim Rasheed (Bonde) stated that work on local fish factories should be completed as soon as possible in order to increase the production capacity of canned tuna exported from the country.

His comments came via a tweet on the occasion of national fishermen’s day. In the same tweet, he also criticized the country’s current capacity of canned tuna production and export. He stated that the state-owned Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company MIFO had the capacity to produce 50 tons of canned tuna. According to the MP with this and the capacity of private companies, the total capacity of Maldives is 115 tons of canned tuna. He also claimed that the current capacity is equivalent to a good day’s catch by 6 vessels in the fishing season.

MP Ibrahim Rasheed suggested that to enhance the capacity of canned fish production the government needs to follow-up on the ruling MDP’s presidential campaign promise of building local fish factories in the islands.

Although building local fish factories is a presidential promise of the current administration and land has been cleared for the project in Addu City, no concrete work has been done to establish these factories within the last 2 years of the administration. The government also claims that India has provided funding to establish these factories.