Statistics from the Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) show that 11.9 million rufiyaa was released for fish caught by fishermen last week. According to the statistics published by MIFCO, the government’s fish company, 177 vessels unloaded fish to MIFCO last week. A total of 11.9 million rufiyaa was released to these vessels. In the previous week, 23.5 million rufiyaa was released to fishermen.
Although the number of vessels that went fishing increased compared to the previous week, as last week was the last 10 days of Ramadan, MIFCO has noted that fishing was slower. The highest amount of fish unloaded to MIFCO in recent history was on March 8th. On that day, MIFCO released 7.5 million rufiyaa to 40 fishing vessels.
According to MIFCO’s statistics, the company released 120 million rufiyaa for fish caught by fishermen in February this year. This is a 2.6 percent increase compared to January. In January, MIFCO released 177 million rufiyaa to fishermen. In line with President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s pledge, payments for fish catches are being released within 48 hours. This pledge was implemented on the last Fishermen’s Day, and since then, more than 385 million rufiyaa has been released to fishermen.
When this government took office, a large amount of money was owed to fishermen for their fish catches. To pay the increasing bills, the government changed the fish prices to match the prices in the global market. The government has also paid and cleared about 250 million rufiyaa that was owed to fishermen. The government’s goal is to further expand the fishing industry and make it one of the largest revenue-generating industries for the Maldives. The government is working on many initiatives to achieve this goal. This includes doubling the fish storage capacity in the Maldives and ongoing work on processing facilities.
