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· Kenya is banning its fish imports from China in order to protect the local fishing industry and fishermen from the neighboring East African countries
· Towards this, a legislation may be introduced in the parliament seeking to abolish fish import. In 2019, Kenya recorded an annual fish production of 146,687 metric tones
· That included 102,331 from freshwater production, 18,542MT from aquaculture and 23,700MT from marine resources
· According to the Global Fish Watch tracker, between May and August there were 230 vessels in the Kenyan waters
Kenya is banning its fish imports from China in order to protect the local fishing industry and fishermen from the neighboring East African countries. This decision was taken at a recent meeting of the National Assembly’s Committee on Agriculture recently.
Towards this, a legislation may be introduced in the parliament seeking to abolish fish import. In 2019, Kenya recorded an annual fish production of 146,687 metric tonnes. That included 102,331 from freshwater production, 18,542MT from aquaculture and 23,700MT from marine resources. According to the Global Fish Watch tracker, between May and August there were 230 vessels in the Kenyan waters. A larger percentage of these vessels were foreign owned like Italy, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. They were fishing within the Kenyan territorial water boundary.
Imported fish are now cheaper than the locally available ones. Chinese fish flooding Kenya has earlier in 2018 led to diplomatic tensions between the two countries. That time, President Uhuru Kenyatta said Kenyan government officials should find ways of curtailing the imports. Despite these measures and avowed objective of protecting the local interests, China still accounted for the largest share of fish that were imported from the world. Unofficial estimates put the value of imported fish from China accounted for 70% of the fish sold in the local market.
