Steering committee members of the Small-scale Maritime Fishery Development Support Project met in Yaounde on thursday.

Members of the steering committee of the government-created Small-Scale Fishery Development Support Project have resolved to redouble efforts and take activities to all parts of the country with the view of increasing maritime fish production to meet growing demand. They made the commitment in Yaounde yesterday November 24 during the committee’s 5^th steering meeting in the conference hall of the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries (MINEPIA).

Speaking during the opening ceremony, the Secretary General of MINEPIA, Mrs Ouli Ndongo Monique, said besides evaluating the path covered by the project thus far, the session was also to seek ways of extending the project nationwide so as to effectively live up to expectations of its creation. Holding on the heels of concerted efforts in the country to increase fish production to meet national demand, Mrs Ouli Ndongo Monique enjoined the committee members to leave nothing to chance in contributing their quota for MINEPIA to achieve optimum results.

Specifically, attention is on augmenting the number of common initiative groups in the maritime fishery sector by 20 per cent as well as ensuring at least a 10 per cent increase in production by the groups. Statistics show that over 60 common initiative groups (12 in the maritime zone and 48 in the continental area) were identified for grooming and support during the ongoing fiscal year. The 60 common initiative groups are scheduled to receive subvention in terms of fishing material to the tune of FCFA 84 million by December ending. They are said to be producing averagely 110 metric tonnes of fish annually. The production fetches FCFA 132 million for the groups. Both production and income are expected to rise with the announced material support.