Supply and Value Chain Analysis in the Marketing of Marine Dried Fish in Bangladesh and Non Tariff Measures (NTMs) in International Trading

In Bangladesh 7.3 million people live in the coastal fishing villages whose livelihood someway depends on marine fishing. About 20 percent of total marine catch dried round the year and marketed both in domestic and international market. In the supply chain of marine dried fish marketing four intermediary stakeholders are involved between producers and consumers. Besides, involvement of backward stakeholders with the primary producer is considerably high that results 22 percent value addition to raw fish. The value addition is found highest 105 percent from wholesaler to retailer, followed by 90 percent from wholesaler to exporter. In long supply chain profitability is not as high as the value added. In contrary both the profit maximization and profit distribution are considerably higher in a short supply chain. Supermarket secure as high as 150 percent profit. In all cases, primary producers secure less profit, only 5 to 8 percent whereas their involvement in terms of labor, time etc. is the highest. The major cause of price exploitation is dadan (non institutional money lending) that make producers bound to go for 'conditional engagement' in fish drying business. In relation to dry fish export, the increasing non-tariff measures (NTMs) acts as critical barrier despite having huge international market demand. The WTO SPS and TBT agreements impose a bound obligation to the exporting member countries to improve food quality as per set international standard, but the compliance cost related to SPS obligation is too high, and the government is reluctant, otherwise unable to meet the set criteria. The study recommends appropriate policy intervention for financing dry fish producers and to strengthen domestic technical regulations to overcome technical barriers to dry fish trading in international market.