Barequl Islam Chowdhury, Head of Social Business, COAST Trust who presented the keynote said that only about 2 percent of the total need for small crab is being collected from the natural source (sea and rivers) every year.

“Crab fattening programme has been undertaken at the entrepreneurial level to create opportunities for the production of crab by establishing crab hatchery on a large scale to create income and employment opportunities through expansion of crab cultivation as an adaptation tool to climate change in all coastal areas of the country.”, he said

Dr Akand Md. Rafiqul Islam said that COAST has established the crab hatchery in Cox's Bazar with the technical and financial support of PKSF. This type of hatchery is very important since government laws and regulations don’t allow crabs cannot always be harvested from natural sources like rivers and sea.  

An entrepreneur of crab hatchery from Ukhia, Md Bedar Uddin said “We are working to produce crab with the support of COAST and PKSF. Hopefully, it will play an important role in the economic development of Bangladesh.”

Mustafa Kamal Akand said, the initiative of producing crab would not only contribute to the national economy but will also play a vital role in achieving the SDGs, especially to the SDG target number one.

Senior General Manager of PKSF Dr Akand Md Rafiqul Islam, Assistant Directors of COAST Maqbul Ahmed, Regional Team Leader of COAST Jahangir Alam, Sheikh Nazrul Islam of PKSF, Chowdhury Md Masum, Executive Director of the SANGRAM were also present at the briefing.