Doha: Qatar has paid great attention to developing the aquaculture industry to increase production and raise the percentage of self-sufficiency in fish from other sources without resorting to excessive use of fisheries.
Pursuing that purpose, Qatar established the Aquatic and Fisheries Research Center Ras Matbekh in Al Khor, which was fully equipped with the latest technologies in aquaculture and entered the actual production phase in 2022 and achieved several successes and goals.
Head of the Aquatic and Fisheries Research Center Ibrahim Salman Al Mohannadi said that Qatar made great achievements in aquaculture and shrimp farming.
He pointed out that the center succeeded in producing Rabbitfish - Safi, Grouper, and Yellowfin seabream - Sha’am hatchlings using the best product of Grouper and Yellowfin seabream at the local level due to the great successes in hatching local fish in large quantities.
Al Mohannadi revealed that in 2022 over five million fish were hatched, indicating that expanding in such projects is done through establishing coastal fish farms to fatten the fish fry produced by the center, thus contributing to achieving food security.
He stressed that the Aquatic and Fisheries Research Center, the biggest of its kind in the MENA region, achieved all its environmental goals. He pointed out that more than one million fingerlings of Grouper and Yellowfin seabream were released into the sea to enrich the fish stock. In addition, the center also achieved its developmental goals, including producing around one million fish larvae during 2022 and more than 6 million shrimp larvae.
Al Mohannadi explained that the types of aquatic organisms that are cultured in the center include local fish, which are Hamour, Bream, Safi, and Subaiti and non-Qatari fish such as European seabream and crustaceans like white-legged shrimp, vannamei.
He stated that the volume of production for the past year reached about two million small grouper, Shaam and Subaiti fish, about 4 million larvae of the vannamei shrimp, and about 31,000kg of shrimp.
Al Mohannadi said that the center uses the latest methods of fish technology and the biofloc system in shrimp farming, describing them as advanced farming systems, characterized by the use of small quantities of new marine water, with the recycling of what is in the tanks, which achieves high quality of farming water.
He revealed the targeted quantities of production for the next three years, including the production of 3.3 million hamour, bream, pure sabaiti and chakra fish in 2023 and 2024, and 4.4 million of these same species in 2025.
Al Mohannadi explained that the incentives offered by Qatar to the private sector to invest in fish farming projects include marine sites and lands in the industrial area for a nominal rent, as well as providing young fish and shrimp larvae for free for a limited period, to encourage it to obtain young shrimp from the center’s hatcheries.
