With a marketing blitz publicizing the country’s seafood sustainability initiatives, Morocco pushed up its profile at the 2016 Seafood Expo Global in Brussels.
Seafood represents 2.5 percent of the African country’s national GDP and employs 170,000 jobs. In 2009, the country launched “Plan Halieutis” aimed at increasing the sector’s economic clout, with the goal of tripling its value to USD 3.1 billion (EUR 2.7 billion) by 2020, according to a press release.
More than 40 Moroccan companies attended SEG, seeking to market Moroccan seafood and build new business relations, the release said. The Moroccan pavilion at SEG was organized by the country’s Food Exports Control and Coordination Organization (EAACE), a government-aligned organization supporting the country’s agriculture and food industry.
EAACE also sponsored a panel on sustainability in Moroccan fisheries on Thursday, 28 April. Participants included Department of Maritime Fisheries Secretary General Zakia Driouich as well as department director Taoufiq El Ktiri, National Research Institute for Fisheries Abdelmalek Faraj, MSC Developing World Program Head Yemi Oloruntury and Jo Gascoigne, a consultant to the country’s fisheries improvement projects.
