Page 54 - october issue magazine

Agriculture
Ratification of Ports
State Measures Agreement, a
great step for Kenya towards
bluing the National Economy
By Mical Imbukwa
F isheries play an important role in the
national economy of most countries,
Kenya included. For instance about
200 million Africans rely on fish as an
affordable source of proteins and mineral and
employing over 10 million people. In Kenya, the
fisheries sector contributes about 0.8% to the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at farm gate
price, providing direct employment opportunities
to over 500,000 people and supporting over 2m
people indirectly. A total of 167,000 Mt of fish was seen an escalation of transnational and organized
landed from capture fishery and aquaculture. It
is estimated that Kenya’s marine fishery has the
 52 potential to produce of 150,000 –300,000 Mt of
fish annually, but only 9,000 Mt was produced in
Commerce & Industry October Issue 2016
2015. Kenya earned US$ 13M from the fish exports.
Over the years, the world is experiencing a high
demand for fish and fisheries products.
We are already experiencing shortage of fish
and fishery products across the globe. This is now
putting pressure on our fisheries resources to meet
the increasing demand for the seafood products.
World fish stocks are being rapidly depleted, and
valuable species are nearing extinction. Because
fish are valuable commodity, the last decade has
criminal networks engaged in illegal, unregulated
and unreported (IUU) fishing. There is increasing
evidence of IUU fishing activities in our waters.
IUU fishing is a serious problem affecting countries
worldwide and Kenya is not exceptional. IUU fishing