Financing Myanmar's fisheries through fiscal reform

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The hilsa shad is one of Myanmar’s most commercially valuable fish species. It also provides income for thousands of artisanal fishing households in some of Myanmar’s most impoverished areas. Yet hilsa stocks appear to be in decline. Existing fiscal tools — such as taxation and licence fees, already used by the government to generate revenue from hilsa production and trade — could be used to mobilise additional resources from the value chain. Doing so could provide financing for a system of incentive-based hilsa fisheries management. By increasing revenue collection efficiency and adapting current tools to better target actors nearer the top of the hilsa value chain, the government of Myanmar could triple current revenues and use these to support more sustainable and inclusive hilsa fisheries.