The opposition has criticised Fisheries Minister Ahmed Shiyam for celebrating the canning of Maldivian tuna exported to China under the Maldives-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
In a post on X, Shiyam congratulated the Weihai QZ Blusea Foods Co. Ltd. and the Jingweidao brand team for preparing the first sample batch of canned tuna made from Maldives-caught fish.
"It marks a pioneering step in leveraging the China-Maldives Free Trade Agreement, which allows zero import duty for Maldivian fish products entering China," he wrote, adding that it is part of President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu's vision to diversify the fisheries industry.
But former Managing Director of State Trading Organisation (STO) Hussain Amr said this is not something to be "thrilled about."
"We are exporting raw fish under FTA. China cans it, labels it and sells to the global market," he stated.
Amr expressed concern and said that the Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) has not received any foreign orders and only has to supply canned tuna to the domestic market.
He also said fishermen were struggling because of the low prices, while the fish canning factory was operating at a loss.
"FTA with China was supposed to lift us, but our fisheries sector is sinking even deeper. There's no value-added exports, no strategy, no vision, no hope," Amr wrote.
He highlighted the importance of exporting value-added products, warning that "this is our loss and someone else's profit."
Former Home Minister Umar Naseer called for increased exports of value-added products.
"We will remain a poor country if we continue to export raw fish for others to do the value addition," he said in a post on X.
Meanwhile, the government's main policy on promoting the fisheries sector is increasing value-added production in the Maldives.
But the government has not been able to work towards the target by establishing the necessary infrastructure to implement the policy.
The most important work to increase capacity is upgrading MIFCO's factory. The former government took a loan from India's Exim Bank for this project.
However, it is unclear when the project can be completed.
