The soft-shell crab cultivation business in the farms of No. 468 block in Kyaukpyu Township, Rakhine State is thriving and those crabs are started to distribute in the external market, said a breeder. They started this commercial farming in March 2019, with 250,000 crabs. They buy the young crabs from the wild, select the live crab and separate them in the crab farming boxes.
The crabs are fed fish, caught by the inshore and offshore fishing vessels, every six hours with the use of bamboo rafts. The soft-shell crabs of marketable size are sent to the cold storage for processing and they are, again, delivered to Yangon. Then, they are shipped to Asian countries with a container. The current difficulties in crab farming is a financial constraint amidst the COVID-19 impacts. Another problem is a limit in cash withdrawal at the bank and we are in debt to secure the raw material supply.
Kyaukpyu district head of the Fisheries Department U Kyaw Sint stated that the business employs about 110 local people, with a maximum monthly payment of K500,000. To maintain the soft-shell crab resources in a long term, we will direct the businesspersons to set some of the crabs free into the sea in a certain season. The soft-shell crabs from Kyaukpyu Township are being shipped to Asian countries such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, China Taipei (Taiwan) and Hong Kong SAR, Southeast Asian countries like Viet Nam and some European countries.
Source: The Global New Light of Myanmar