The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) is all set for the official inauguration of the QR 230 million Aquatic Research Centre located at Ras Matbakh in June 2019, as reported by Gulf Times.

The Aquatic Research Centre opening is part of Qatar's plans to enhance and further develop the country's fisheries sector. This is one of the largest projects of its kind in terms of its research, production and technical support aspects.

According to MME,the centre will pursue scientific research and conduct studies to find out what are the best ways to do fish breeding, with a special focus on the local varieties of economic value to increase the volume of domestic production and supply the needs of the local market accordingly. In addition, centre hopes to maintain a surplus production of fisheries that can be imported.

The centre will have special aquaculture facilities and a unit for fish breeding with a capacity of 2.4 million fish larvae that can handle four hatching seasons a year. Spread across 110,000 square metres, the centre has the potential to raise its production capability to 10 million fish a year. There is also another unit for shrimps which could ultimately produce six tonnes a year.

The source stressed that the country has been working to achieve 90% self-sufficiency of fish locally by 2023 and expected that the percentage of self-sufficiency would amount to 79% this year, and the following year 87% and will go up gradually until the target is met.

Regarding self-sufficiency of shrimps, the strategy is to reach 100% self-sufficiency by 2023 through the production of 1,000 tonnes annually in the Al-Arish Area, touching 5% in 2020, 25% in 2021 and 75% in 2022.

Cover image credit: GEIC

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Nabeela

Content Writer

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