About 30,000 tonnes of dried fish (shutki) are sold each year at Asadganj, the old wholesale market in Chattogram, worth roughly Tk 2,400 crore. Mohammad Abu Naser, president of the Asadganj retail dried fish traders' association, gave the estimate: at an average of Tk 800 a kilogram, that is the year's turnover. The season began in October and runs until April.
The fish is dried along both banks of the Karnaphuli river, at Bakalia, Ichhanagar, Dangarchar, Chaktai, Rajakhali, Moizzartek and Juldha, and on the Bay of Bengal shore in Banshkhali and Anwara. In more than 200 drying yards, 20 to 25 species of sea fish are sun-dried by about 5,000 workers, many of them women. Producers say the 98-acre yard at Bakalia alone has 120 drying racks and about 2,000 workers a day.
The Asadganj market has around 300 shops. It sits on Saturdays and Tuesdays, when wholesale buyers arrive from dawn from Dhaka, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet, the northern districts and the three hill districts. Traders say the market supplies 30 to 35 percent of the country's dried fish.
Traders quoted loitta (Bombay duck) at Tk 850 to 1,500 a kilogram, ribbonfish at Tk 600 to 2,000, pomfret at Tk 2,000 to 5,000 and lakkha, the dearest, at Tk 3,500 to 5,500. Large red prawns sell at Tk 1,600 to 2,500 a kilogram. Among freshwater kinds, dried shol (snakehead) fetches Tk 1,000 and baim (eel) Tk 1,500 to 1,600.
Officials of the wholesalers' association put national demand at about 60,000 tonnes a year against domestic output of 27,000 tonnes. The remaining 33,000 tonnes, 55 percent of demand, are imported from Myanmar, India and Pakistan, while Chattogram's own dried fish is exported to the Middle East, Europe and America.
Md. Nazrul Islam, director of the marine fisheries office in Chattogram, said the dried fish is made from particular small species caught in the Bay of Bengal and meets demand across the country, including Dhaka, Rajshahi and Rangpur. In his view a large share of people's protein needs is met by Chattogram's dried fish.
The report is by Krishi Shomoy's Chattogram correspondent.
Photo: Silver Blue / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Krishi Shomoy
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