Very soon Terengganu will become a major global supplier of shrimps once the RM200mil Integrated Shrimp Aquaculture Park (I-Sharp) is ready for production by 2011. State Agriculture and Agro-based Industries committee chairman Rozi Mamat said the state government has allotted a 1,200ha site to government-linked company (GLC) and subsidiary of Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Blue Archipelago Berhad, to manage the shrimp farm.
Rozi told that the project is one of the stimulus projects under the Economic Stimulus Package 2009 where the project is expected to provide job opportunities to about 1,300 locals while generating an estimated RM130mil in annual income. He added that the first phase of the aquaculture farm will utilise 400ha of land and the construction of 500 ponds where the production is expected to start by end of next year.
The first phase of the project has started where 10,000 to 12,000 tonnes of white-leg shrimp and 5,000 tonnes of black tiger prawns could be produced when the farm reached its optimum output. Rozi opined that the locally harvested shrimps would be exported to global market including Europe, Japan and United States.
