30% of fishing trawlers allowed to resume  one month earlier than close season

Myanmar puts a three-month stop to the fishing season in the Myanmar sea and 30 per cent of fishing trawlers are ruled out one month earlier than usual for the local self-sufficiency and export markets. Therefore, fishing businesses that generate foreign income have resumed.
Starting last year, the Fisheries Department eased the fishing ban on 30 per cent of offshore fishing vessels in June as a trial run. This scheme was implemented in Ayeyawady, Yangon and Taninthayi regions and Mon and Rakhine states.
This move made the fishing business operators, fishers and those involved in the local fish supply chain and the cold storage facilities financially do well.
About 80 fishing trawlers in Yangon Region are allowed to leave for the sea. Just two trawlers are given go-ahead in Rakhine State so far.
In a bid to conduct surveillance of the offshore fishing, we monitored the vessels to check if the vessels have been installed Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) and equipped with the nets with the Turtle Excluder Device (TED) to protect endangered sea turtles or not.  Last year, 238 trawlers with VMS executed fishing in Yangon Region.
However, the fuel oil burden in the regions and states forced certain fishing trawlers to cease operations temporarily in the first week of June.
Saltwater fish and shrimp exports generate greater revenue than freshwater exports. Myanmar earned over US$800 million in income from overall fishery exports and 70 per cent of them accounted for seafood. Myanmar primarily ships 15 saltwater fish species and five shrimp species to China. The country exports four species of saltwater fish and shrimp to Thailand as well. — Nyein Thu (MNA)/GNLM