Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Fisheries has signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s General Administration of Customs that will see the South Asian island nation set up quarantine and quality protocols in order to gain clearance for the export of seafood to China.
The deal will allow Sri Lankan companies to export 29 aquatic products easier to China, according to Sri Lanka Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena, reported by EconomyNext.
Sri Lanka, with a population of 22 million, is in the midst of a severe financial crisis, with its economy contracting 8.7 percent in 2022. In early January, Sri Lanka announced it had restarted negotiations with China on a free-trade agreement. Expanding trade to China will help rebuild some of the economic progress lost to the recent economic challenges facing the country, Gunawardena said.
“There are 38 companies in Sri Lanka that exports these aquatic products. There is a big demand for that in the Chinese market,” Gunawardena said. “Especially for products such as sea cucumbers, there is big demand.”
In 2020, Sri Lanka exported about 326 metric tons (MT) of sea cucumbers worth LKR 1.5 billion (USD 4.1 million, EUR 3.8 million), and in 2021, that total increased to 336 MT, mostly to China, Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong.
Sri Lanka has issued more than 500 permits for sea cucumber farms, with another 100 applications currently being processed, according to Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror, including several backed by Chinese investors, such as the Guilan Sea Cucumber Hatchery and Farm. The government recently dedicated 5,000 acres of coastal land to sea cucumber aquaculture development, saying the project has the potential to generate up to USD 1 billion (EUR 928 million).
A Sri Lankan firm, Suganthan Sea Food, recently opened a new LKR 200 million (USD 544,000, EUR 505,000) sea cucumber processing plant in Jaffna, according to Sri Lanka’s Daily News.
But some local fishing groups are pushing back against the expansion of the country’s sea cucumber sector, saying it is encroaching upon their fishing grounds.
“We recognize the need for investment in our war-affected region, but the sea cucumber farms are mainly for exports. They will only bring more harm than benefit for those of us living here,” Jaffna Fisheries Federation President Annalingam Annarasa said.
A lot of the new sea cucumber farms are owned by domestic investors, but they still have the potential to disrupt the local ecological balance that allows small-scale fishermen to make a living, Annarasa said.
“Most of the investors are locals, but many are not from the fisher community. They are politically well-connected and influential…the real issue is our Fisheries Ministry is now focused only on aquaculture for profits, and not fisheries which is also about livelihoods,” Annarasa said. “Fishermen like us, our experiences or knowledge don’t figure in their plans.”
Photo courtesy of Guilan Sea Cucumber Hatchery and Farm
