African ministerial conference on fisheries opens in Conakry
Morocco-Africa, Politics, 10/15/1999

The fourth session of the ministerial conference on fisheries cooperation between African Atlantic countries opened proceeding in Conakry, Guinea, on Thursday, by calls to make of the conference an implement for economic development and integration.

The two-day meeting is debating cooperation between member countries, mainly in the realms of vocational training and scientific research.

The Morocco-Japan-African countries tripartite cooperation project on vocational training, the project to set up a network of sea research institutions existing in member countries, means to enhance the competitive edge of fisheries industries and the project to create a regional training center on the checking of sea products quality are also on the agenda.

Participants will also discuss means of standardizing national legislation and will finalize projects likely to strengthen collective and individual technical capacities of member countries.

Addressing the opening of the conference that observed a minute of silence in the memory of late king Hassan II who passed away last July 23, Moroccan minister of fisheries, Thami Khyari, hailed African countries for having grasped the importance of the fisheries sector in economic development and its role in international relations.

Khyari pointed out that the participation of all the 22 member countries of the conference to the gathering evidences the importance they grant to the sector.

"We have all grown aware of the importance of the fisheries sector and of the role the sea should play in international relations in general and in our countries' economic and social development," Khyari said, adding this awareness is a prelude to the consolidation of cooperation between African countries which are determined to join efforts to take up the challenges.

In the same vein, Guinean Prime Minister Lamine Sidibe called participants to make of the conference a genuine implement for economic development and integration as fisheries is for most member countries growth-generating sector.

The guinean premier also called member countries to target food self-sufficiency through a rational management of the continent's sea resources and to work out a concrete program of action taking into account the reality of each country.

The conference was preceded by a meeting of experts who discussed the recommendations made by the follow-up committee latest session held in Rabat last february.

The recommendations mainly call for a more rational exploitation of sea resources and for the adoption of concerted fisheries policies, meant to preserve the fundamental balances of the sea eco-systems and to improve the contribution of the fisheries sector to the economic and social development of the African Atlantic countries.

The ministerial conference on fisheries cooperation between African Atlantic countries held its first meeting in Morocco in 1989 at the kingdom's initiative and adopted the Rabat declaration that laid the bases for a comprehensive regional cooperation between the 22 member countries of the organization.

Morocco holds the permanent secretariat of the conference.

Previous Stories:
  Morocco, Guinea assess fisheries cooperation   (10/14/1999)
  Morocco attends African ministerial fisheries conference   (10/9/1999)
  Moroccan premier starts African tour   (5/29/1999)

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