The Central Fish Market Employees Federation (CFMEF) said the significant improvement of the country’s health situation and also the arrival of more foreign tourists to Sri Lanka during this New Year season between January to April helped the Peliyagoda Central Fish Market to uplift its daily turnover to a record 90%.
In an interview with Daily News Business CFMEF, Chairman Jayasiri Wickramarachchi (Pictured) said when comparing to the 10 to 20% sale of fish recorded during the last 18 months due to the pandemic situation , the reason for the increased sale of fish at present is due to the healthy environment prevailing across the country.
He also thanked large and small scale fish distributors and traders in the main fish market at Peliyagoda and also at outstation fish stalls for making an outstanding effort to develop the country’s fisheries industry once again without getting discouraged. He said unlike in the past almost all tourist hotels in Colombo and outstations are now purchasing large quantities of fish from the Peliyagoda market which has resulted in improving fish sales.
Jayasiri further said the country’s entire fisheries sector during the last curfew period faced immense hardships since the fish consumption had shown a negative impact and this situation badly hampered not only the fisheries sector but some large scale buyers. “However due to the sharp improvement in the country’s health sector now we firmly believe that the fisheries sector will gradually show fruitful results even after this New Year,” he said. Jayasiri said the high fish prices currently prevailing in the country is due to few loads of fish that are coming to the Central Fish Market from various parts.
“As we know some private sector fish traders are in the habit of purchasing large stocks from fish producing areas before dispatching them to Peliyagoda Central Fish Market and sell them at exorbitant prices in their fish outlets,” he said.
He also thanked authorities for taking steps to minimize fish imports from foreign countries as it will greatly help all sectors involved in the industry.
