Fish traders.[Photo/Nation]
The government has associated the rise in fish consumption to the increased importation of the commodity.
Outgoing Fisheries PS Micheni Ntiba who has been moved to University Education and Research docket said fish eating has increased in the last nine years.
“Fish is a commodity for trade. Nationally we produce about 130, 000 metric tonnes of fish. We are not importing so much fish. We are only importing 37, 000 metric tonnes but we expect that the country should produce fish,” he said.
This comes after Industrialisation and Enterprise Development CS Adan Mohamed shielded fish imports from China mentioning that the country only imports to fill the gap in supply.
The fish from China is taking over the Kenyan market due to lack of enough production within the country. But traders have complained that cheap fish imports are ruining their business.
“We have discussed with the importance of having investment in the sea particularly to exploit unexploited resources in the Indian Ocean,” he said.
He also said that aquaculture will help the country to have new fish and in the short term it will be able to give the country more than 100,000 tonnes annually.