New lobster farm to boost local aquaculture industry

• RM2 billion lobster farm to produce 14,000 high-income jobs in aquaculture
• Global market for lobsters is estimated to be over US$4 billion, or about RM12 billion a year

10 years from now, a wide spectrum of skills ranging from PhD and Masters level scientists and engineers, to aquaculture specialists and skilled aquaculture technicians would be needed for the world's largest Integrated Lobster Aquaculture Park (iLAP) in Malaysia.

The iLAP is expected to produce up to 40 million pounds of hatchery-based tropical Sabah native spiny lobsters when it reaches maximum capacity in 2029, creating more than 14,000 high income jobs by 2022.

The global market for lobsters is estimated to be over US$4 billion, or about RM12 billion a year with the Asia Pacific region, particularly China, accounting for about 75 per cent of the total market

Valued at RM2 billion, its project owners include Darden Aquascience Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Darden Restaurants Inc, Nexus Sustainable Seafood Sdn Bhd and Inno Fisheries Sdn Bhd. Darden Restaurants, Inc., is the world's largest full-service restaurant company, owns and operates more than 2,000 restaurants that generate USD8 billion in annual sales.

The target for the agriculture component of the National Key Economic Areas is to raise the total Gross National Income (GNI) contribution of the sector by RM34 billion to reach RM49 billion by the year 2020, he said.