Ten fishermen’s markets would be built in Sabah starting next year to facilitate their marketing their fish catch themselves, said Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
The building of the fishermen’s markets costing RM200,000 each was aimed at reducing the monopoly of middlemen who profiteered from the toil of the fishermen, hence enabling the fishermen to raise their income and standard of living.
“The construction of the fishermen’s markets will commence after the locations have been identified,” he said after a meeting with the Parliamentary Agriculture Development Council, farmers and fishermen’s leaders and Tekun entrepreneurs, here, Tuesday.
Ismail Sabri said the effort was one of three fish marketing mechanisms to ensure the 60,000 fishermen nationwide could sell their catch directly to consumers instead of going through middlemen.
He said the mechanisms implemented through the value chain control strategy by fishermen themselves which included building of wholesale markets with the cooperation of Fama, could prevent them from being exploited.
Earlier, in his speech, Ismail Sabri said through the value chain control strategy, the state and area fishermen’s associations would play their role from providing the ice blocks, setting up retail shops, repairing the boats to marketing the fish catch.
He said the Malaysia Fisheries Development Authority (LKIM) would be training the children of fishermen to become mechanics so that the fishing boats could be repaired by them and not by others like before.
The minister also approved the immediate building of the Kalabakan Tekun office for the benefit of the area’s residents, besides announcing an increase of Tekun allocation for Sabah next year.
He said with an allocation of RM33.7 million this year, Sabah was now in fifth place among the states in terms of allocation.
2013 BERNAMA