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THE Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources aims
for a double-digit growth this year to help the farm sector attain
its production target, it said Tuesday.
The agency projects a 10-percent
growth from 6.31 percent equivalent to 4.4 million metric tons last
year.
“This is a record-breaking and
an ambitious target, but this is our way of helping the Department
of Agriculture meet the 4-percent to 5-percent growth,” BFAR
Director Malcolm I. Sarmiento Jr. said in a telephone interview.
In the first semester of the
year, the fishery netted the highest gain at 7.19 percent, but lower
than 8.6 percent a year ago.
“For us to maintain the target,
the sector should grow 13 percent in the second quarter from 8
percent in the first three months of 2006,” Sarmiento said, adding
BFAR hopes for a “crashing growth” for fishery in the last
quarter of 2007.
“This is mainly because there
is [always] tremendous demand for fishery in December due to
holidays,” Sarmiento said.
In January to March this year,
the fishery was the major gainer with 8.52-percent surge in output.
Commercial fisheries recorded a
turnaround, while municipal fisheries sustained the uptrend in
production and gross value of fisheries output amounting to P43.7
billion at current prices or 10.34 percent more than last year’s
record.
In 2006, gross value of
production in the sector amounted to P163.4 billion, up by 11.62
percent from a year earlier, Bureau of Agricultural Statistics data
showed.
The Philippines ranks among the
top fish-producing countries in the world with current production of
4.16 million metric tons, while it leads in tuna export.
--Chino S. Leyco
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