Tunisia is looking for Chinese investment in its fisheries sector, according to the country’s top fishery official, who is meeting with Chinese envoys this week in Tunis, the country’s capital.
Tunisian Minister of Fisheries Samir Al-Tayeb met with Chinese Ambassador Wang Wen Bin to discuss a potential agreement between the country’s Agency for Agriculture Investment and China that would involve investment and exchange of expertise, according to a Tunisian statement.
“We welcome Chinese companies to invest and cooperate with us,” Al-Tayeb said.
China has been keen to import food products like seafood, olive oil, and coconuts from Tunisia, according to Ambassador Wang.
Tunisia already receives some fisheries-related support from China, beginning more than a decade ago, when China promised to send 500 agricultural and aquaculture trainers to African states during the China Africa Forum. Since then, China has been building infrastructure across Africa, funded by a mix of private money and loans from Chinese banks.
More recently, China’s Commerce Ministry funded a group of experts from the China Academy of Fishery Sciences to assess and advise on Tunisia’s technical capacity to house a large-scale shrimp farm. The “technical feasibility study group,” led by Liu Ying Jie, the academy’s deputy chairman, met officials and representatives from the Tunisia Ocean Research Institute (INSTM) and the country’s Aquaculture Technical Centre (CTA) to discuss aquaculture technology, disease prevention, and cure methods, according to a statement from the China Academy of Fisheries.
The Tunisian project is part of a larger group of demonstration sites for aquaculture in northern Africa being funded by China’s Commerce Ministry, according to the statement.
Abutting the Mediterranean Sea, Tunisia has been seeking to consolidate economic reform and to generate employment in recent years after the country’s democratic revolution in 2011 – a revolution precipitated by rising unemployment, food price inflation, and corruption.
Photo courtesy of Watsup Africa
