Narinjara News

Arakan Prawn Industry Suffering

Sittwe, November 18: Due to the decline of export demand, the prawn industry in the Arakan state has suffered this year, according to our correspondent inside Arakan.

The demand has dropped since America imposed trade sanctions on Burma.  Malaysia and Singapore used to import a large proportion of the prawns from Burma, but there is no demand from them this year. 

A viss (1.75 kilogram) of prawns used to be around 20,000 kyats at the wholesale price in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan.  Currently this price is less than 10,000 kyats and the prawn traders are not paid promptly, but only after they managed to sell their supplies.

Therefore, the prawn producers joined with the traders in order to travel to Rangoon to sell their prawns.  But the transportation cost is about 2600 kyats for 20 viss (35 kilograms) of prawns; therefore the prawn producers have not been able to transport the prawns to Rangoon. 

Since the prawn market is not doing well, some prawn industries namely Kyaw San Pwint, Shwe Thara Wonn, Coop (6), Minn Zar Nee, Aung Naing Won, are doing so badly that they could be facing bankruptcy soon.

The military divisions in Arakan confiscated prawn farms without compensating the farmers who owned the prawn farms.  The soldiers then started to breed and sell the prawns themselves to supplement their military expenditures.  However, with the declining prawn price and being unable to maintain the farms, the military divisions are also facing heavy losses.#