Four datina fish were sold for a whopping Tk16 lakh at Barguna's Patharghata Fish Landing Centre Thursday.

On Tuesday night, the crew of a fishing trawler caught the delicious marine fish quartet from the Bay of Bengal as it adjoins the Sundarbans. 

Each weighed 90kg, said Golam Mostafa Chowdhury, president of Barguna District Trawler Owners' Association. "Mostafa Alam, a fish wholesaler, bought the fish for Tk16 lakh as the highest bidder."

Mostafa said, "There is not much demand for this fish in our country, but its demand is sky-high in India and China. So, I bought the fish for export."

The government has undertaken artificial breeding to increase the stock of this globally valuable fish that is depleting day by day, the Department of Fisheries said.

It has already succeeded in breeding the spawn of datina through artificial insemination with hormone treatment.

Scientists at Khulna's Paikgacha Brackish Water Station of the Bangladesh Fish Research Institute made this possible at the very beginning of 2021.

Bangladesh's yearly fish output increased to 4.4 million tonnes in 2020, from 1.8 million tons in 2000 – an almost two-and-a-half-fold increase.

According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation's latest flagship report "The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020," with over 1.2 million tonnes of fish captured from inland water, Bangladesh now contributes a tenth of the world's total inland water-captured fish production, ranking third behind China and India.

Naturally, the industry is keen to increase exports, now that it consistently produces a surplus over national demand.