ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: The government has formed a committee comprising officials from Sindh and Balochistan to come up with proposals for preparing legislation to ban the use of small fishing nets in the sea.

The decision was taken at a meeting held on Monday. Federal Minister for Livestock and Dairy Development Mir Humayun Aziz Kurd was in the chair.

The policy review is aimed at attracting investment and increasing export of fisheries.

The use of small nets has caused a considerable decline in the number of small fish and resulted in depletion of stocks in Sindh and Balochistan.

The legislation will enable the authorities to confiscate boats using small nets and impose fines on their owners. The government is also seeking legal powers to put the confiscated boats on fire.

The minister informed the meeting that foreign investors were fast losing interest in deep sea fishing because of higher rates charged by the government.

Every year, he said, the national exchequer lost millions of dollars because disheartened investors had diverted their money to neighbouring countries where the cost of doing business was relatively low and conditions friendly.

The meeting decided to revise the rates and allow deep sea fishing beyond an area 20 nautical miles from the coastline.

On a request from the Balochistan government, a buffer zone starting 12 nautical miles from the shore has been set up and local fishermen have been allowed to operate 20 nautical miles from the shore.

The “exclusive economic zone” has been divided thus: territorial waters from zero to 12 nautical miles, buffer zone from 12 to 20 nautical miles, Zone-II from 20 to 35 nautical miles, and Zone-III from 35 to 200 nautical miles.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, in early 2000s, Pakistan recorded a marine catch of 420,000 metric tons per year and about 85,000 tons, or 20 per cent of the total catch, is exported.

Shrimp is the main export item in terms of value while fish is the largest item in terms of tonnage.

The European Union traditionally provides the largest market for Pakistan’s fishery, taking about half of the total exports by value. Apart from EU countries, the other major markets for shrimp are Japan and the US.

About 60 per cent of non-exported marine fishery catch, equivalent to 170,000 tons of fish, is used to produce 37,000 tons of fishmeal, most of which is used as poultry feed at home.

Consequently, only 160,000 tons of marine fishery production is consumed domestically in fish form every year.