Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday asked the authorities concerned to stress more on utilizing the untapped potentials of the 'Blue Economy'. The premier gave the directive while chairing a meeting on the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) held at the NEC Conference Room in the city's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.
Bangladesh is geographically blessed as the country is located on the Bay of Bengal. Bay of Bengal has long been contributing to Bangladesh’s economic growth and can serve us with a plenty of resources that can help the country ensure food security, eradicate poverty boost economic growth and generate sustainable as well as inclusive employments. In this regard, Bangladesh needs to leverage conservation and utilisation of marine and coastal eco-systems in an efficient manner. Needless to say, safe and environmentally sustainable extraction of sea resources will make a remarkable contribution to the wellbeing of our future generation.
We arelagging behind in exploiting
our blue economy potential due
to lack of technology and
efficient manpower
The assets of the world ocean are estimated to be worth US$25 trillion. The "Blue Economy" supports lives of more than 3 billion people and is the 7th largest economy in the world which is growing annually and is expected to reach US$ 3 trillion by 2030. There is an abundance of resources under the ocean that need to be tapped prudently to fuel our economic growth. Ocean selflessly offers its bounty to us but we in Bangladesh have not been able to exploit the abundance of treasure beneath it.
Bangladesh reportedly has 1, 18,813 square kilometres of maritime area and more than 30 million people directly depend on oceanic economic activities like fisheries and commercial transportation. However, Bangladesh has not been able to conduct adequate survey to learn and identify maritime resources. Hitherto, we are lagging behind in exploiting our blue economy potential due to lack of technology and efficient manpower.
We must nurture what we have and in order to do that we need to learn and identify the amount of resources available in the sea. To this end, integrating new technology and conducting adequate and quality research are pertinent. Also for harnessing the full potential of blue economy, stepping up by the private sector has become more than a necessity. It is envisaged that the private sector can play a crucial role in improving country’s maritime research and surveys. We hope that the government and its departments concerned will involve private sector in government’s coastal development and management plan. Last but not least, Bangladesh needs to leverage conservation and utilisation of marine and coastal eco-systems in an efficient manner.
