FISHING INDUSTRY PLAYS VITAL ROLE IN MALAYSIAN FOOD SECURITY

Fishing industry plays vital role in Malaysian food security. This photo here by Fish Focus shows a small portion of the Malaysian fishing fleet anchored in the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.

Malaysia covers a total area of 329,847 km² consisting of two geographical regions: West Malaysia (also known as Peninsular Malaysia) and East Malaysia. The country’s total coastline length is 9,323 km and total area of the exclusive economic zone is 198,173 km².

The fisheries sector is vital to the economy and food security of Malaysia as it supports rural development by creating employment opportunities as well as serves as an important source of animal protein. In 2021, the gross domestic product from fisheries was 0.8 % and the fish available for consumption was 34.08 kg/capita.

In 2022, the gross domestic product (GDP) from the entire Malaysian fishing industry was 11.53 billion Malaysian ringgit.

Malaysia is the world’s top seaweed producers. The total number of fishers in 2017 was estimated to be about 132,305 with an additional 21,156 people engaged in aquaculture full-time.

The majority of fish from the marine capture sector is sold in fresh and chilled form; while those from aquaculture are marketed live, directly to restaurants, with higher price compared to other markets. With more wealth and understanding of the health benefits of fish, demand for fish is increasing.

While fresh seafood is the most important fish product consumed, supply and demand for processed seafood have increased in recent years. The production of processed fish fillets, shellfish, and other seafood in the “ready to eat” form has seen an increase in volume. Overall, the food processing sector accounts for about 10% of Malaysia’s manufacturing output and is dominated by small and medium scale enterprises.

The nation’s fish processing sector is export-oriented and includes the processing of prawns, frozen products, canning of fish and the production of surimi and surimi products.

The Fisheries Development Authority of Malaysia (LKIM) said in 2017, processed seafood was Malaysia’s biggest export in the seafood and fisheries industry, valued at more than RM1.2bil.

Per capita consumption of fish is one of the highest in the world. In quantity terms, Malaysia is a net importer of fishery products and offers quite high prices for fishery products. The country is thus attracting supplies from neighbouring countries, but also from countries far away such as Norway (mainly salmon).

A great variety of fish species is caught from the warm tropical waters off the country. Several types of pelagic fish consistently dominate the catches. Shrimp catches are also significant. The pelagic Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger spp.) fishery is one of the major catches, coming mostly from the purse seiners and drift/gill netters, with trawlers taking the remaining landings.

The round scad (Decapterus spp.), also pelagic, is the next dominant group with landings of 89,958 tonnes in 2007. It is mostly caught by the purse seiners, with less than 10 percent contributed by the trawlers. Squid (Loligo spp.) generally come in third on the list of dominant groups, with trawlers generally contributing nearly 90 percent of these catches, with the balance coming from a wide range of other fishing gears.