Bangladesh does not have a skilled workforce to extract resources from the sea, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said friday.
“Bangladesh has conducted some surveys on the resources of the Bay of Bengal. But we are yet to have any technology and knowledge to extract the sea resources,” he told the opening session of a national conference on “Coastal and Marine Environment of Bangladesh”.
For example, the minister said, there was a huge quantity of tuna fish in the Bay but Bangladesh had not adopted the technique of catching tuna properly.
Tuna could bring Bangladesh a lot of foreign currency, Muhith said.
In the last three years, through two international verdicts, Bangladesh won ownership of 118,813 sq km of territorial sea in the Bay, which opened up opportunities to explore the huge marine resources in the area.
Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa) and Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN) jointly organised the two-day conference taking place at the Krishibid Institution.
Now Bangladesh has to take policy decisions of its own regarding coastal areas instead of depending on foreign consultants, said Prof Nazrul Islam, vice president of Bapa.
He also said now it was time to learn from the mistakes and open the polders constructed in 1960s in the country’s southwest region so that natural sediments could deposit in the polders.
Comparing the usefulness of polders in Bangladesh and the Netherlands, he said the realities of the two countries were different — they had different rainfall and land formation patterns.
The Netherlands have to depend on polders but they create huge problems in southwest Bangladesh, said the professor.
Rear Admiral (retd) Md Khurshed Alam, secretary (maritime affairs unit), the foreign ministry, said if Bangladesh could not use its resources by developing its capacity, other countries would take the opportunities.
He called for opening oceanography programmes in universities.
Economist Prof Wahiduddin Mahmud, Founder of Bishwo Shahitto Kendro Prof Abdullah Abu Sayeed, Vice Chancellor of Stamford University Prof Firoze Ahmed, Secretary General of Bapa Dr Abdul Matin, and Joint Secretary of Bapa Iqbal Habib were present.