📌 Bangladesh Fisheries Sector: Updated Overview, Resources & Production (2025)

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📌 Bangladesh Fisheries Sector: Updated Overview, Resources & Production (2025)

Writer: Niaz Murshed Chowdhury

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✅ 1️⃣ Introduction

Bangladesh is a riverine South Asian nation, located between latitudes 20°34′–26°39′ N and longitudes 80°00′–90°41′ E. Its unique deltaic landscape, with thousands of rivers, floodplains, and coastal wetlands, has shaped the country’s socio-economic structure — where fisheries play a vital role in nutrition, livelihoods, exports, and biodiversity conservation.

Fish and shrimp are Bangladesh’s second-most valuable agricultural commodities, providing 60% of national animal protein intake and securing the livelihoods of millions of rural households. The sector’s major goals are:

• To ensure food and nutrition security,

• Reduce rural poverty through employment and income generation,

• Expand exports of fish, shrimp, and prawn,

• Protect aquatic biodiversity and maintain the ecological balance of inland and coastal waters.

Since independence in 1971, Bangladesh’s fisheries have grown remarkably:

• In 2023–24, fisheries contribute ~4.5% to national GDP and ~23% to the agricultural GDP (Bangladesh Economic Review, 2024).

• Over 11% of Bangladeshis — more than 20 million people — are directly or indirectly employed in fishing, farming, processing, transport, or export.

The sector’s average annual growth rate remains strong at 5–7%, the highest among Bangladesh’s agricultural subsectors. The total fish production surpassed 4.8 million metric tons in 2023 — an increase of nearly 80% since 2000.

Bangladesh’s inland and coastal water resources are vast:

• 40.2 lakh hectares of open inland waters: rivers (8.5 lakh ha), the Sundarbans mangroves (1.8 lakh ha), beels (1.1 lakh ha), floodplains (28.3 lakh ha), and the Kaptai reservoir (68,800 ha).

• About 1.58 million hectares of perennial inland water and an additional 2.8 million hectares of seasonal monsoon-flooded land suitable for seasonal fish culture.

• 480 km coastline plus a 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Bay of Bengal.

Beels, the shallow natural wetlands, are some of the most productive inland fish habitats, with major examples like Chalan Beel, Arial Beel, Dekhar Beel, and Gopalganj-Khulna Beel. These seasonal floodplain wetlands support the life cycle of many native fish and prawn species.

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✅ 2️⃣ Fishery Resources

🔹 2.1 Inland Fisheries

Bangladesh’s inland fishery resources are among the largest and richest in the world. They contribute over 80–82% of total fish production.

Inland fisheries are divided into:
1️⃣ Open water fisheries: Rivers, estuaries, haors, baors (oxbow lakes), and beels connected to river systems.
2️⃣ Closed water fisheries: Ponds, tanks, dighis, seasonal floodplains, and shrimp/prawn farms.

🔹 Key resources:

• Rivers & estuaries: Major spawning grounds for carp species like Rui, Catla, Mrigal.

  • Important spawning sites:

    • Halda River (the only pure Indian carp river breeding ground in South Asia),

    • Arial Khan,

    • Garai, Ganges, Jamuna, Old Brahmaputra.

• Baors: Ox-bow lakes, mostly in Jessore and Kushtia (e.g., Baluhar, Joydia).

• Haors/Beels: Sylhet-Mymensingh basin has the country’s largest seasonal wetlands — e.g., Kakaluki Haor (36,437 ha), Tangua Haor (25,506 ha).

🔹 Closed waters:

• Ponds/tanks: Spread nationwide — many originally dug by zamindars, kings, and feudal lords centuries ago.

• Many derelict tanks have been revitalized for modern aquaculture.

• Shrimp/prawn farms: Coastal and brackish water zones are key areas.

Key figure: Though closed water covers only 15% of inland water areas, it produces over 50% of inland fish output due to the higher productivity of controlled aquaculture.

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🔹 2.2 Marine Fisheries

Bangladesh’s marine zone covers:

• A continental shelf area of ~67,000 sq. km.

• Territorial waters of about 1 million hectares.

• An Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles (320 km) into the Bay of Bengal.

The continental shelf (shallow waters up to 200 meters deep) supports demersal and pelagic fisheries. Bangladesh’s marine waters are rich in shrimp, Hilsa (Tenualosa ilisha), pomfret, Bombay duck, and mackerel. But only 18% of the country’s total fish output comes from marine capture fisheries — with huge potential still untapped due to limited deep-sea fleet and technology.

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✅ 3️⃣ Production Trends

Since the early 1980s, Bangladesh has made major progress in:

• Expanding brackish water aquaculture, especially black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon).

• Shrimp culture area rose from 140,000 ha in 1980 to ~214,000 ha by 2020–2023.

• Inland pond fish farming (carp polyculture) has modernized with improved broodstock management and hatchery operations.

Recent policy shifts emphasize:

• Sustainable aquaculture intensification,

• Improved hatcheries and fry supply,

• Conservation of wild stocks (e.g., bans during Hilsa breeding),

• Community-based co-management of open water bodies.

Key production data:

• In 2008–09, total fish production was 2.7 million MT.

• By 2010–11, this rose to 3.06 million MT.

• By 2023, total output is estimated to have crossed 4.8 million MT, with:

  • ~82% inland fish (aquaculture + capture)

  • ~18% marine fish.

Exports: Shrimp remains Bangladesh’s second-largest agricultural export, earning about USD 400–500 million annually, mainly from black tiger shrimp and freshwater prawns.

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✅ 4️⃣ Future Priorities & Vision

Bangladesh’s fisheries roadmap aims for:

• Raising inland aquaculture productivity with better feed, seed, disease management.

• Expanding community-based open water management to boost sustainable catch from rivers, beels, haors.

• Tapping unexploited marine resources through modern trawlers, deep-sea fleet investment, and eco-friendly certification for exports.

• Strengthening export standards for global markets (EU, US, Japan).

• Conserving endangered indigenous species and spawning grounds to maintain biodiversity.

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✅ Key Statistics at a Glance (Approx. 2023–24)

Parameter	Figure
Total fish production	~4.8 million MT
Inland fisheries share	~82%
Marine fisheries share	~18%
Fisheries share in GDP	~4.5%
Fisheries share in agri-GDP	~23%
People dependent on fisheries	~20 million
Shrimp/prawn farm area	~214,000 ha
Open water area	~4 million ha
Coastal zone	480 km coastline + EEZ

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✅ Final Note

Bangladesh’s fisheries are a story of natural abundance, rural livelihoods, export earnings — and untapped opportunities. For a food-secure, nutrition-secure future, smart investments, sustainable management, and stronger enforcement of conservation rules will be crucial.

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