AN official from the Department of Fisheries (DOF) said the government has completed its project of building nearly 10,000 boats for distribution to fishermen who lost their livelihoods following cyclone Nargis.

“We planned to build 9500 fishing boats to give to fishermen in the delta,” U Khin Ko Lay, the deputy director general of the department, said last week.
“We have finished building all the boats and nearly all of them have been distributed to fishermen,” he said.

The 21-foot-long boats were built in camps in the delta by eight teams of professional boat builders from across Myanmar. The work was started about three months ago with timber supplied by the government.

Each boat cost about K200,000 to build, plus another K200,000 for each engine.

“We were able to build all the boats in only three months. It is our contribution to the fisheries sector,” U Khin Ko Lay said.

He said the boat builders showed good community spirit by travelling from throughout the country to help fishermen who were affected by the disaster.
The boats have been distributed along with fishing nets donated by the Myanmar Fisheries Federation.

U Khin Ko Lay said DOF is also planning to build bigger fishing boats that are safer for fishing in the open sea.

“These will be built using donations from the individual donors but we still have to calculate the cost of building each boat,” he said.

Meanwhile, a team of French donors visited Ayeyarwady Division earlier this month to survey the needs of delta fishermen.

U Khin Ko Lay said the group visited the village of Ale Thaung, where about 600 cyclone survivors live.

“They met with 25 fishing families who will receive their donations. They also met with boat builders and took the specifications of the boats to be built and the cost proposal of the builders,” he said.

He said a total of 25 boats will be built from the money from the French donors: two boats of 32 feet in length at a cost of about K2.87 million each, and 23 boats of 21 feet in length costing about K335,000 each.

According to the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment Report prepared last month by the ASEAN-led Tripartite Core Group, the cyclone caused a total of about K159,055 million in damage to the fishery sector.

About K125,541 million in damage was sustained by the capture fisheries industry and the balance by fish farms, according to the report.