More than 4.6%. This is the weight of Africa in the fish trade. Unthinkable regarding the continent’s enormous potential of fishery resources. Faced with the urgent need to create a regional dynamic in order to improve access to the international markets and African ones, COMHAFAT/ATLAFCO (Ministerial Conference on Fisheries Cooperation among African States bordering the Atlantic Ocean) and INFOPÊCHE (Intergovernmental Organization for Marketing Information and Cooperation Services for Fishery Products in Africa) have organized for the second consecutive year, a regional seminar. And this, to promote trade in fisheries and aquaculture products on the continent.

At the opening of the two days of work, Thursday, March 16, 2023 at the Plateau, the Minister of Livestock and Fishery Resources Honourable Sidi Touré, stressed that the trade of fishery products is one of the few areas where the participation of developing countries is constantly growing. “Africa needs good statistics of its trade flows to make appropriate decisions in favor of the fisheries sector”, he said. With the gradual establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area, he noted, inter-African trade cooperation is expected to grow further and “fishery products should not remain on the sidelines”.

According to the Executive Secretary of ATLAFCO, Mr. Benabbou Abdelouahed, the low weight of Africa in the world fish trade is the result of the persistence of obstacles to intra and inter regional trade in fish and fishery products. “The infrastructure deficit, the quality of services, tariff and non-tariff barriers, the weakness of trade channels, the requirements of product standards and health control and the cumbersome administrative procedures are all bottlenecks that hamper the growth and promotion of trade of fishery products in our countries”, he said. Concrete proposals are therefore expected to remove these constraints.

The main objective of the regional seminar, explained Mr. Shep Helguilè, Director of INFOPÊCHE, is to strengthen the skills of the actors of the fisheries and aquaculture sector to better master the international instruments of sustainable fisheries management and trade of fisheries products, with the aim of having a better access of their products to lucrative markets, especially international ones.