Total fish production reached 1.53m tonnes in 2015, compared to 1.48m tonnes in 2014, with an increase of 2.5% due to a larger production of fish farms and rice fields. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) issued today the annual bulletin of fish production Statistics for 2015. The total production of fish farms and rice fields ranked first with 1.5m tonnes, followed by lake production with 171,500 tonnes, marine waters with 102,900 tonnes, and finally fresh water production with 69,700 tonnes. The production of bony fish held the first place of total fish production at 1.5m tonnes (or 97.0%); crustaceans amounted to 18,600 tonnes, accounting for 1.2% of the total; other varieties of fish totalled 17,700 tonnes (1.2% of total); lung fish production recorded 0.4% of total production at 5,900 tonnes; and cartilaginous fish and molluscs reached 3,000 tonnes, to account for 0.2% of the total amount of production. Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Essam Fayed has announced that total fish production is 1,481,882 tonnes annually, pointing out that the Ministry has a plan to develop fisheries in Egypt by increasing fish production, as to meet the domestic consumption and compensate for the shortage of meat. Fayed added in a press statement a few days ago that this plan relies on the expansion of intensive aquaculture and marine hatchery, noting that the Ministry has already established a marine hatchery in the Kilometre 21 of the Cairo-Alexandria-Matrouh road, financed by an Italian project grant. He continued that another marine hatchery was created on the coast of Bardawil Lake for high-value fish at a cost of EGP 31m, in addition to 140 sea cages in Mariout valley to produce 700 tonnes of fish. Moreover, a fish farm was established in the New Valley province on an area of 25 acres, using fresh water from wells, and another fish farm in South Sinai was built on an area of three acres for the production of Tilapia. According to Fayed, Egypt ranks first in Africa and the Middle East in aquaculture for the production of Tilapia.
