Special Edition: Middle East and African feed developments
Chinese firm constructing tilapia farm in Angola
RSI Su-Lda is aiming to build 200 tilapia fish farming tanks in the Barra do Dande region, located in Angola’s Bengo province, according to Agence Angola Presse (Angop).
The company is said to have already purchased enough feed to launch the business, but that it plans to produce feed locally at a later date.
Some 85% of the tanks are said to have been built.
Aquaculture development in Angola
Angola is located in southwestern Africa with a 1,600 km Atlantic Ocean coastline. Fisheries represented less than 1% of its GDP in 2014 with production of around 310,000 tons, as per African Development Bank (AfDB) data.
However, the Angolan government is prioritizing development of the fisheries sector, both coastal and aquaculture value-added production in Angola with support both from the AfDB and the UN, according to a US embassy report.
That review concluded that aquaculture production in Angola while modest, with a focus on tilapia and catfish, is set to expand. The Angolan government, it noted, is intent on growing the fish farming sector, and is supported by a US$11.1m loan from the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The Angolan authorities were aiming to reach 60,000 tons of aquaculture production per annum by this year, through small-scale communal ponds and a limited number of medium to large-scale commercial aquaculture operations.
“Several private sector aquaculture farms are under development. Commercial sales opportunities exist for US equipment and technology providers in the areas of aquaculture cultivation, small scale fishing equipment, fish processing, cold chain equipment and logistics services,” wrote Manuel Cafala, commercial specialist, US Embassy, Angola.
Angola is one of the neighboring countries that Danish group, Aller Aqua, was intending to export fish feed to from its new factory in Zambia, which started operations last month. Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Tanzania and Congo are also target markets for that new feed manufacturing facility.
