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.

The Imaging Technology for Precision Agriculture Industry 2017 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Imaging Technology for Precision Agriculture industry. Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Imaging Technology for Precision Agriculture market analysis is provided for the international market including development history, competitive landscape analysis, and major regions’ development status. Secondly, development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.

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.

A senior European Union (EU) official in the Caribbean said Europe is ready to continue the global leadership on the fight against climate change, including helping the poor and vulnerable countries in the region. Underlining the challenges posed by climate change, Head of the European Union Delegation to Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean States, the OECS, and CARICOM/CARIFORUM, Ambassador Daniela Tramacere made it clear that the EU has no plan to abandon the extraordinary Agreement reached in Paris in 2015 by nearly 200 countries.

The Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, whose 79 members include some of the most disaster-prone and climate-vulnerable nations in the world, have prioritised the power of international cooperation to reduce the impact of natural hazards. At its meeting during the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, which concluded last week Friday in Cancun, Mexico, the Intra-ACP Forum, jointly organized by the UNISDR and the ACP Secretariat, brought together Ministers from Haiti, Solomon Islands and South Sudan, along with representatives of UNISDR, the ACP Group of States, the European Parliament and European Commission, the African Union Commission, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and CARICOM Secretariat.

The Post-Crisis Response to Food and Nutrition Insecurity Project was on Thursday launched in The Gambia at a hotel in Senegambia. The US$11.4 million project seeks to support the fight against malnutrition among children under two years in four administrative regions namely; North Bank Region, Lower River Region, Central River Region and Upper River Region through targeted interventions focusing on food insecure households. In her remarks, Saffie Lowe-Ceesay, the minister of Health and Social Welfare has stated that the under-nutrition is a major public health problem in The Gambia, exacerbated by increasing poverty levels and food insecurity, poor coverage of nutrition interventions, poor dietary habits, poor sanitation and hygiene and increased burden.

SADC has approved to give R20 million each to Madagascar and Seychelles to help the two island nations improve their participation in regional and international trade. The grants were approved by the SADC trade related facility (TRF) programme steering committee, during its seventh meeting held in Gaborone last month. The facility is a mechanism for financial and technical support given to SADC member states to help them implement commitments made under the regional Protocol on Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union and the SADC EPA group.

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.

It is often said the macroeconomic standing of the agricultural sector has diminished, an argument supported by the sector's declining share of GDP, which fell from 4.2 percent in 1996 to 2.3 percent in 2015. However, what is not captured in this narrative is that the value of the agricultural sector has grown 40 percent, from R50.5bn to R71.4bn over that period. This translates to a fairly modest average annual growth rate of 2.1 percent over the past two decades, which explains why agriculture's relative share of the economy has been declining. Agriculture is not becoming insignificant -- it is just that other sectors, particularly the services sector, have grown at a faster rate from a lower base.