MAPUTO, Mozambique: July 18 (Xinhua) — Mozambican minister of fisheries, Victor Borges, on Wednesday confirmed that his country will temporarily stop exporting prawns by 2013.
The Portuguese speaking nation exports its shrimps to Asian, European, and African markets, according to the minister. He said that the measure was taken following the discovery of white spot viral disease, found in the central province of Zambezia.
“It will be a temporary decision”, he told Xinhua.
The disease was found at the basin off the coast in Zambezia. The shrimp had showed strong signs of becoming extinct in open sea and that the situation had worsened in 2011.
The illness is responsible for altering the physical structure and quality of the catch. One of the measures taken by Borges is that the ministry is cleaning the farmed shrimp breeding tanks throughout the nation to ensure that the future shrimps are not contaminated.
The ministry also says that shrimps contribute to Mozambique’s gross domestic product (GDP) from 3.1 percent in 2006 to around 12 percent of GDP by the end of 2012.This year around 18,000 tons of farmed shrimp are expected to be exported, as compared to 10,000 tons in 2011.
Shrimps and other catches are among the country’s hard currency earners. (Xinhua)
