Luanda - The Angolan Government is to invest, in the period 2023/2027, a total of $90 million, to develop projects linked to aquaculture activity, at the level of the country's communes, he said, this Wednesday, in Luanda, the minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Carmen Neto.
The minister, who was speaking at the 15th edition of CaféCIPRA fair, said that the objective of this financing is to address the shortage of fish in Angola, in addition to developing projects in excavated tanks and the production of fishmeal for tilapia farming.
Alongside this investment, the minister said that the sector will also benefit from financing of €30 million, within the scope of the blue economy.
Additionally, Carmen Neto highlighted that the sector will also benefit from 58 billion kwanzas for the execution of projects linked to reception infrastructures for marine extractive fishing, which currently has 66 piers.
With this investment, she continued, it is planned to build ports along the Angolan coast, as well as improving the conditions of existing port infrastructures, such as in Luanda, Moçâmedes, Tômbwa (Namibe) and Porto Amboim.
Regarding fish production, she said that the country had an average of 560k tons/year, in 2023, of which 35% corresponds to artisanal fishing, while the other percentages belong to semi-industrial and industrial fishing.
She mentioned that the country loses 20 billion kwanzas through unreported and unregulated fishing.
Status of the ship Baía Farta
Regarding the situation of the Angolan oceanographic scientific research vessel Baía Farta, the director of the National Institute of Fisheries Research, Filomena Vaz Velho, assured that its operation is expected to begin next August, with the cruise carrying out the calibration tests of the technical means.
She mentioned that the ship has already been in Angola since last April, after being in South-Africa for around a year, where one of the faults detected in the winches that hold the scientific probes was being overcome.
Baía Farta is a fishing and oceanographic research vessel, capable of monitoring fishing resources, investigating ecosystems and hydrographic and geological surveys.
The vessel, which arrived in the country in 2018, also encompasses other aspects, such as scientific sophistication and technology, devices for researching occurrences of micro plastics and installation of an organized auction system (infrastructure implemented on land, in the area of a port fishing area or in a riverine area for marketing fish).
With a length of 74.1 meters, the Angolan ship has the capacity to board 51 people (29 crew members and 22 scientists) and an autonomy of 29 days at sea.
The ship, costing around 80 million dollars, has an acoustic room, four labs, a gym, double cabins, kitchen, service area with 15 command monitors and three computers for controlling the Sonar (an electronic device generally used in naval navigation, to measure the distance between the water surface and the seabed).
ANM/QCB/CF/jmc
