Cabinet approves commercial arm to develop sargassum industry

Akash Sama­roo

The Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to trans­form the coun­try’s per­sis­tent sar­gas­sum sea­weed prob­lem in­to a po­ten­tial­ly lu­cra­tive in­dus­try, with Cab­i­net ap­prov­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a com­mer­cial arm to at­tract pri­vate in­vest­ment and de­vel­op prod­ucts for in­ter­na­tion­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and cos­met­ics mar­kets.

Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Bud­get 2027 de­bate in the Sen­ate, re­veal­ing plans to con­vert the sea­weed, which has plagued coastal com­mu­ni­ties for years, in­to a range of com­mer­cial­ly valu­able prod­ucts.