Dirico - The impact of sportfishing on promoting tourism in the Angolan region of Okavango can bring together national and foreign tourists to explore the sector, considered on Friday the provincial governor of Cuando Cubango Province, José Martins.
When speaking in the municipality of Dirico, at the opening of the 2nd International Sportfishing Competition, the governor stated that in addition to showing the world's tourism potential, the event serves to enhance and preserve the ecosystem in the region's river basin.
He praised the joint work of the Ministry of Tourism and the Angolan Sportfishing Federation to create sufficient logistical conditions, in order to gradually improve the conditions for participation in the event.
In this sense, he envisaged attracting more participants in the competition in the near future, remembering that, compared to the last edition, there is an increase of six in the number of participants, which is 17 teams from Angola, Namibia and Botswana and Angola.
José Martins recognized that the difficulties in accessing the municipality of Dirico, the venue for the competition, is one of the reasons for the poor participation in the event, as the roads are very sandy and only passable with heavy four-wheel drive vehicles.
He assured that the Angolan Executive is committed to working to resolve the road situation, to ensure greater participation not only by competitors, but also by individuals interested in attending the event.
According to the director, the event opened a range of opportunities for all national and foreign businesspeople in the areas of restaurants, hotels and others, appealing to entrepreneurs to invest in the region. "I appeal to all Namibians, Swazis, South Africans, Angolans and others to come to Cuando Cubango and invest.The government will open all facilities to implement these ideas", he concluded.
For his part, the secretary of State for Tourism, Hélder Marcelino, said that the competition is already a mark of an activity that must be regular, to bring the largest number of tourists and investors to this region of the country.
Without detailing the prize values, he stated that one of the elements to improve to attract participants more is the quality of the prizes.
"We want more attractive prizes. We have just seen a vessel that was won in a fishing competition in the Southern region", he highlighted Hélder Marcelino announced that next year there will be a competition as part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of National Independence, on the same stage, so the prize should be improved.
The governor of the Namibian Province of Kavango West, Bonifatius Wakadumo, and several other entities and businesspeople were present at the opening ceremony of the competition. 47 athletes participate in the competition, and, in addition to fish of the tilapia species, commonly known as cacusso, and tiger, which are already traditional in the competition, this edition also includes catfish, whose selection and approval criteria include weight, size and quantity of fish.
In addition to the Cuito River, fishing competitors, tourists and potential investors will have contact with animals such as elephants, giraffes, lions, buffaloes, hyenas, among others, throughout the corridor of the Luengue and Luiana national parks, an integral part of the Angolan region from Okavango.
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