Shrimp is a major export commodity of Bangladesh. It contributes about 85% of the total exports and fish products. On the world markets shrimp exports have grown steadily over the past 20 years, from over 15,000 tons in 1986-87 to more than 48,000 tons in 2007-08. Estimates using data from 2007-08 suggest that 55 percent of frozen shrimp exports from Bangladesh consist of farmed bagda (brackish water shrimp, principally the black tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon), 20 percent of farmed golda (giant freshwater prawns, Macrobrachium rosenbergii) and the remaining 25 percent consist of the marine catch plus some contribution from other inland fisheries (World Bank Report, 2008).
The shrimp alone accounted for 87 percent or US$ 456.98 million to the total fisheries export in 2006-2007. Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters’ Association (BFFEA) Vision 2012 proposed in 2008 a target export of US$ 1.5 billion from shrimp and fish, but US$ 1.3 billion alone from the shrimp in 2012 (BFFEA, 2008).
Shrimp is considered as a principle foreign exchange carrying crop among the frozen sea food of Bangladesh. The sea food mainly comprises of 2 sps of fresh water & 9 sps of seawater shrimps, about 55 spp of fresh water & 712 spp of sea water fin fishes, 25 pieces of fresh water shelled for the, crabs, shark, fin & fish raw.
Due to high demand in the word market for shrimps, prawns & other crustaceans, Bangladesh stepped into a new era of sophisticated industrial processing development. Before independence, the evolution of the shrimp processing industry in Bangladesh dates act to 1959 when the first fish & shrimp processing & freezing plant was installed in Chittagong to usher in an industrial processing revolution country. Just after liberation, there were nine processing plants with a production capacity of app. 58.5 MT per day. All these plants were mostly engaged in processing & export of fresh water headless shell on prawns to Europe & USA. During 1972-76 only 4 processing plants were constructed. From 1977 and on word, the development of the industry started its momentum and reached climax during 1986-89 then 39 plants were installed in 3 yrs time. (Hussain, 1993). In 1972-73 there were there were 13 plants but at present number has increased to 129 in 2005-06.
