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To have a fish product at an affordable price for everyone, it is recommended to increase production. Algeria, which for years focused on increasing the number of mobilized ships, has changed its approach. It is now necessary to move towards large-scale fishing, or deep sea fishing, to increase fish production by an additional 40,000 tonnes. Exploration of these new areas will therefore make it possible to increase the country’s production by at least 50% in the years to come, in addition to the contribution of aquaculture.
This is now the new direction of the Ministry of Fisheries and Fisheries Production which makes increasing production an objective to be achieved. This strategy was exposed yesterday by the secretary general of the ministry, Farid Harouad, who indicated that Algerian fish production has remained the same for years and has not accompanied the increase in the population. Increasing production is therefore necessary.
“To have an affordable fish product, we must increase production. There is no other way,” said yesterday the SG of the Ministry of Fisheries in his statement on national radio, signaling in this sense the new strategy of the sector, adopted after noting the stagnation of the national production for decades.
This was demonstrated by a study carried out in 2023 by a committee of experts, which studied the state of production for 30 years, according to the explanations of Mr. Harouad, who said that production remained around 100,000 tonnes per year, despite the increase in the number of vessels mobilized. “The number has increased more than twice. 2,550 ships were mobilized in 2000. In 2020, this figure increased to 6,200, but the production remained the same and the population which increased shared the same production,” he said.
A situation which pushed the authorities to change strategy after having made an assessment of the fishing strength of the Algerian coast.
The latter demonstrated that the biomass that can be fished is estimated at 187,000 tonnes, according to the SG of the ministry, who says that fishing in Algeria is exclusively coastal. Something that makes our production capacities limited. This is why Algeria has opted for a new direction, namely that of prospecting other areas, namely large-scale fishing. However, this offshore fishing requires tools.
Equipped and adapted fishing vessels are mobilized with the aim of exploiting all the potential estimated at 40,000 additional tonnes of fish.
The approach is therefore based on strengthening the fishing fleet, indicated Mr. Harouad, who pointed out the instruction of the President of the Republic relating to the importation of vessels of more than 40 meters to inject them into large-scale fishing. . “We have, since the end of 2023, mobilized 10 vessels in large-scale fishing,” he said, expressing his wish to see fish production increase by at least 50% over the next three years.
The great contribution of aquaculture
The ministry’s new strategy also includes one component, that of increasing production through aquaculture, added this official, noting that the studied potential of marine aquaculture is 120,000 tonnes. “Currently, we produce 6,000 to 7,000 tonnes thanks to marine aquaculture,” he said, highlighting the capacity to increase the level of production, with the entry into production of the various projects. “196 aquaculture projects are registered. 70 are in progress and some have entered production and have been able to increase aquaculture production,” he detailed.
The latter increased from 3,000 in 2022 to 6,000 in 2023. “This is a good sign and we want to reach 10,000 tonnes this year and 100,000 by 2030,” indicated Mr. Harouad, according to whom aquaculture projects are the most profitable projects in the world.