Myanmar has revised some fishery export formalities, authorizing the country's Fisheries Federation to directly handle the issuance of Country of Origin Certificate for fishery exports, a local weekly reported Monday.

The new measure, which is aimed at facilitating exporters and boosting fishery exports, will take effect from Sept. 26, the Myanmar Times quoted the federation sources as saying.

Previously, the approval for certificates for all exports including the fishery exports sought by traders as one of the requirements for acquiring an export license, was managed by the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

With the take-over of the certificate issuance by the fisheries federation, the new certificates have also been redesigned to conform to United Nations guidelines, the sources said.

To promote the development of the fishery sector, Myanmar encouraged the establishment of more fishery companies to produce and export fishery products especially through border trade with neighboring China and Thailand.

The country also urged exporting of quality products to the international fish and prawn market for market competition.

Meanwhile, the Fish Information Services (FIS), known as the world's largest fish-related information center, established its Southeast Asia headquarters in Myanmar's Yangon city early this year to render such services in the region, according to the fisheries federation.

There are more than 162,000 hectares of fish and prawn farms across Myanmar. In the 2005-06 fiscal year which ended in March, the country's fish and prawn production gained over 840 billion Kyats (about 700 million U.S. dollars) and meat production more than 600 billion Kyats, official statistics show.

Other statistics also reveal that the country exported 143,000 tons of fishery products in the first half (April to September) of 2005-06, earning 193 million dollars, up by 53,000 tons and 60 million dollars respectively from the same period of the previous year.

Half of the country's fishery products were exported through border trade, mainly to China and Thailand, exporters said.

Myanmar's fishery sector remains as the third largest contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP) by taking up about 8 percent of the GDP.

With a long coastline of over 2,800 kilometers and a total area of 500,000 hectares of swamps along the coast, Myanmar has an estimated sustainable yield of marine products at over one million tons a year.

Source: Xinhua