Farmers are set to benefit from the Africa Improved Foods (AIF), a food processing factory that was unveiled Wednesday. Speaking at the official unveiling of the plant, various officials said the Kigali Special Economic Zone-based factory will be fed by raw materials produced locally. Officials said sourcing raw materials from local farmers is a key element that will benefit not only the producers but the country as well as the manufacturer. However, it was noted that local farmers still lack the capacity to satisfy the needs of the factory. AIF Rwanda is a joint venture between the Government of Rwanda and a consortium of four international partners; Royal DSM, Dutch development bank-FMO, CDC Group plc (the UK government’s Development Finance Institution) and IFC.

A group of Italian business people plan to invest in the construction of a shipyard for assembly and repair of fishing vessels in the municipality of Soyo, in Angola’s Zaire province, the director of Italian company Ac Enterprises said on Wednesday in the city. Orazio Omata also told Angolan news agency Angop news that the investment will be made in partnership with the Angolan company Pele Angola. Omata said that a shipyard is a project of major importance, as it makes it possible to assemble and repair fishing vessels to operate in the region and the re-launch of the fishing sector in the province. Alongside the shipyard the company plans in August to start building a factory to process fish in the city’s industrial hub.

Representatives of Guinea-Bissau and the European Union (EU) are meeting in Brussels on Monday for a new round of negotiations on the next fishing agreement the EU will have with the country, according to the local press. This new round, which runs until Wednesday, is the fourth since the end of March that the parties have held without reaching an understanding on the format of the new agreement. Guinea Bissau’s Fisheries Minister Orlando Viegas said at the end of the third round earlier this month that the differences of opinion in the process lie in the model each party intends to give to the new agreement, according to the report published in Jornal de Angola. The proposals put forward by the Guinean authorities require an increase of rates compared with what the EU has been paying for the rights to explore the Exclusive Economic Zone’s fishing resources.

As a company focused on its customers, and one that is expanding in Africa, it was natural for Aller Aqua to support World Aquaculture 2017 the first time it takes place in Africa. Since Aller Aqua was established, focus has been on the customers and what the company could do to help them achieve maximum output from their fish farms. Implementing costumer focus as one of the company values has enabled Aller Aqua to achieve continued growth, first in Europe, then Asia and now Africa. World Aquaculture 2017 is sponsored by Aller Aqua, and puts a spotlight on Africa.

The European Commission has granted Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) a temporary waiver on the rules of preferential origin for prepared or preserved fillets of mackerel, bonito and albacore according to the implementing regulation published in the European Union’s Official Bulletin. The waiver will last for a year (June 2017 to June 2018) for bonito and albacore and two years for mackerel, with retroactive effect from 1 January 2017. Cabo Verde benefits from the Union’s generalised system of preferences for the rules of origin. The waiver covers annual amounts of 2,500 tonnes of prepared and preserved mackerel or mackerel fillets and 875 tonnes of processed or preserved bonito and albacore.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council has recommended regulations governing the use of electronic equipment to monitor at-sea discards of target, non-target and prohibited fish for certain West Coast groundfish fisheries. If approved by National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), this will mark the culmination of a four-year process to develop and implement regulations for electronic monitoring system use in West Coast groundfish fisheries. Council Member Dorothy Lowman said, “For many fishing operations, electronic monitoring will provide a more cost-effective way to meet 100 percent monitoring requirements. This will allow fishermen the flexibility to choose the monitoring method that makes the most sense for them while maintaining full accountability.”

Australia works closely with our regional neighbours to continually strengthen global management of some of the world’s largest tuna fisheries located in the Pacific Ocean. One of the most important sources of data available to monitor fishing activity is the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) satellite based electronic Vessel Monitoring System (VMS). Vessels from all twenty-seven member countries, nine participating territories, and seven cooperating non-member countries fishing for tuna in the Pacific Ocean on the high seas, must report to the WCPFC via a VMS unit which provides information on vessel position, course, and speed 24-hours-a-day 365-days-a-year for the purposes of compliance, fisheries management, and research.

Alan Deidun, director of the International Ocean Institute Malta Training Centre was invited by the IOI, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong and by the Schenzhen World Health Foundation to attend the ‘Healthy Oceans, Healthy Coasts’ International Leadership Seminar held in Hong Kong. The major scope of the seminar was to contribute in tangible means to the drafting of a position paper on how best to achieve the ambitious targets of Sustainable Development Goal 14 to be eventually presented at the UN’s The Ocean Conference to be held in New York in June The meeting was opened by IOI managing director Antonella Vassallo.

Operationalizing the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Customs Union, which will result in the removal of barriers to free trade in the region, is being strengthened through a series of regional capacity building consultations being undertaken by the OECS Commission. These sessions will provide a clearer understanding of the new era in domestic, regional and international trade for the seven OECS Protocol Member States, which would include the removal of import formalities on goods traded within the Customs Union and the harmonization of border and regulatory procedures with respect to goods imported from countries outside of the region. To date, the Commission has held consultations in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Montserrat and St. Kitts and Nevis on the work undertaken to establish the Customs Union and Free Circulation of Goods.

The EU currently has nine Outermost Regions (ORs), which are an integral part of its territory: the Canary Islands (Spain), the Azores and Madeira (Portugal), and Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Ma rtinique, Saint Martin, Réunion and Mayotte (France). While t he rights and obligations of the EU Treati es apply fully to these regions, Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) recognises that the y have particular features which constrain their development, and allows the adoption of specific measures adapted to the situation of the ORs. Under the current common fisheries policy (CFP) , OR fishing fleets are subject to the same management measures as all EU fleets . A s the CFP sets maximum limits of total tonnage and engine power, the capacity of the OR fleets cannot increase (though Mayotte, which became an OR more recently, benefits from a derogation) OR fleets ' capacity limits are set for each fleet segment of each OR.