Kenya plans to modernize its tuna fisheries sector in order to tap into the industry’s potential.
Micheni Japhet Ntiba, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries said that currently the country’s fishing capacity that targets tuna species are largely artisanal and constrained to operate day-trip fishing in Kenya’s territorial waters.
“Through the National Tuna Fisheries Development and Management strategy, we hope to transit Kenya’s tuna fisheries to a modern commercially oriented industry with direct positives to employment and improved incomes,” Ntiba said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Ntiba noted that Kenya is strategically located in the rich tuna belt of the Western Indian Ocean region which accounts 20 percent of the global tuna production.
The PS said that estimates show that the tuna fishery in Kenya’s Exclusive Economic Zone has a potential output of between 150,000 and 300,000 metric tonnes.
The East African nation’s fisheries sub-sector plays an important role in the economic and social development of Kenya as it supports over two million people directly and indirectly.
Government data indicates that in 2016, Kenya’s national annual fish production was 167,000 metric tonnes, constituting 70 percent from freshwater sources, 24 percent aquaculture and six percent from marine sources.
The PS said that the key challenges facing the sector includes the negative impact of climate change and a lack of harmonized transnational boundary fisheries regimes in the East African Community partner states.
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