Kazakhstan has signaled its intent to greatly expand its aquaculture sector, and has created a new Fisheries Committee inside the country’s Ministry of Ecology, Geology, and Natural Resources to lead the effort.
In a statement, the ministry said landlocked Kazakhstan will increase aquaculture output by 2030 to 600,000 metric tons (MT) – half of it for export – through the creation of 545 new fish farms. Hitting the 2030 target will mean a nearly tenfold increase over the nation’s 2019 fisheries output of 66,000 MT, with the bulk of that made up of wild-caught freshwater fish.
The new committee will focus on ways government can assist the expansion of aquaculture, including “improving legislation, establishing the production of fish feed, and staffing,” the ministry noted.
"The creation of a specialized department contributes to the effective implementation of the recently adopted program for the development of fisheries up to 2030. This will increase the volume of fish farming and export of fish products,” the statement said.
The new committee represents an about-turn for Kazakhstan, which abolished its Fisheries Committee in 2014 (it was previously housed in the country’s Ministry of Agriculture). Like many other nations dependent on hydrocarbons for its national wealth, Kazakhstan has had to look at ways to diversify its economy in an era of falling oil prices and promised multilateral action on climate change caused by carbon emissions.
Kazakhstan has another reason to take action: China has rapidly scaled up crab and trout aquaculture operations in the Yili region of China. Zhang Yu Ru, the CEO of Xinjiang Tianyun Organic Agriculture Co., which is located in Kalasu Township in Yili, told SeafoodSource recently her firm aims to export rainbow trout to Kazakhstan and other central Asian states, as well as to Eastern Europe. The competition may be spurring the Kazakh government to look closer at how it can compete with its neighbor to the east.
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