The 134th Regional Workshop for Decision Makers in Fish Processing Inspection and Marketing kicked-off Monday at the Paradise Suites Hotel in Kololi.

The two-day regional confab is jointly organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Ministry of Fisheries, Water Resources and National Assembly Matters under the FAO's Standard and Trade Development Facility (STDF) project. The forum brought together decision makers from The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Benin to meet on the sanitary and phytosanitary requirements, improve and sustained access of fishery products export to markets, particularly the EU and other major markets.

The FAO-STDF project is aimed to develop the capacity within the beneficiary countries (Benin, The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Senegal) competent authority and industry in order that the sanitary and phytosanitary issues are understood and do not constrain the export of fishery products. It is also aimed at delivering training in safe fish handling at landing level. Declaring the workshop officially open, Lamin Kaba Bajo, the minister of Fisheries, Water Resources and National Assembly Matters described it as very important and a step in the right direction considering the involvement of policymakers in the improvement of access to fishery products to export markets.

According to him, the existence of a sound policy and commitment in support of the control of the health and safety of fishery products is important but cannot be put in place without understanding the fundamental requirements for meeting standard. He said: "It is therefore important that policymakers in government understand the issues around sanitary and phytosanitry requirements for compliance with international standards."

Minister Bajo pointed out that the fisheries sector and the fishery products in particular play important roles in the maintenance of society and the economies of the respective countries by providing important sources of valuable protein, gainful employment and foreign exchange earnings through trade in fishery products. "There are indeed greater prospects of increasing gain from fishery products by increasing returns through improved management of the supply and value chains and addition of value to products," he noted, and went on to call for harmonised language of food quality and safety.

The primary objective of the fish trade, Minister Bajo went on, would be to assure and maintain supply and access to export markets, explaining that the only way to maintain market access of fishery products as food is by guaranteeing that the products meet quality and safety standards at all times.

He lauded the FAO-STDF project for improving the systems of control of production of fishery products, and challenged the participants to come up with concrete needs to sustain support to the fish inspection services to enable effective control in both export and import of fishery products. He finally on behalf of The Gambia government under the leadership of President Jammeh, thanked the FAO-STDF project for organising the forum.

Speaking earlier, Babagana Ahmadu, FAO representative in  The Gambia, described fisheries as the most common resource food, saying over 75% of the global fish production is used for direct human consumption. He added that the consumption of fresh fish is growing at the expense of other forms of fish products.

With over one-third of world fish production now being traded internationally, the FAO Rep said quality and safety assurance has become a major issue. "There is an evidence that fishery products are being diverted from more lucrative export markets because lack of compliance with their requirements and that poorly functioning institutional support for exports constrains growth," he stated, pointing out that all of these issues are related to difficulties in the countries concerned with interpretation and implementation of the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement and a limited capacity to deal with the market requirement for value-added products. He pointed out that it is against this background that the project was designed.

Ahmadu said considerable progress has been made in recent years to establish internationally agreed standards and procedures that assure consumers a good quality fish product, and expressed optimism that after the forum, participants will be well sensitised on the Sanitary and Phytosanitary requirements governing fish exports and the requirements of the importing countries, whilst re-assuring of FAO’s continuous support in this move