The Minister of Fisheries, Mad. Gladys Asmah, has observed that Ghana has the potential to turn around the fortunes of its fishing industry and promised that her ministry will do its best to ensure that it happens. She said, “we have large expanse of water bodies, a resource which needs to be harnessed to the optimum. In fact 10% of the entire land surface of Ghana is covered by water. We also have a fairly good stock of expertise in the country.” Mad. Asmah was speaking in Accra at a Meet-the-Press Series. She told reporters that the ministry with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has engaged the services of a consultant to draft a national fisheries policy to help in that direction. As a policy, she said the fisheries ministry has settled on plans to modernize old fleets of fishing vessels and equipment for deep-sea fishing as well as put in place sensitization programmes to attract private investment and entrepreneurs into the fisheries industry. According to Mad. Asmah, a study that was conducted two years ago, barely six months after the ministry was established, had shown that the country’s annual fish demand was 720,000 metric tones, while the supply was 400,000 metric tones, leaving a shortfall of 320,000 metric tones which was complemented by the import of about 200,000 metric tones at a cost of US$200 million. She said the ministry was putting in place measures to deal effectively with the problem of deteriorating amenities, which result in post-harvest losses, especially during bumper harvests, due to unavailability of refrigeration and cold storage facilities. Post-harvest losses are estimated to be about 30%. Source: Daily Guide