The advent of trade liberalization coupled with higher fish prices in the global fish market is tempting Tanzania to expand the exportation of fish. The idea at the moment is to include in the export list certain finfish species being caught by artisanal fishers on the inshore marine waters. The initiative is quite in line with the current fisheries policy, which emphasises on increasing food fish availability, increasing fishers' income, employment in fisheries and increasing foreign exchange from fish export. Indeed, the country has experience in exportation of fish and fish products, especially from Lake Victoria fishery. However, this new venture will most likely pose some unique challenges. Whereas in the case of Lake Victoria the export tradehas predominantly been that of an exotic species, the Lates niloticus, in the marine it is intended to include more than 12 species with diverse harvesting and spoilage characteristics. The potential problems of quality and quantity would probably emergeas a function of resource, technological and institutional limitations. This paper presents a systematic assessment of the situation, looking at various potential challenges. It also provides measures that can be adopted hi mitigating the resource, socio-economic and technological issues to meet the food security at home and food safety requirements of the importing countries.
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