The fisheries and aquaculture sector has fully recovered thanks to the government-funded investment projects over the past years. “The country’s fisheries sector has finally ushered in a new era,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said as he visited the local Fishery Management Organization in the city of Durres, equipped with state-of-the-art technology to ensure monitoring of fishing activities and better management of fisheries in line with the highest standards.

“It is unimaginable! Today we have been made available all the highest technology equipment,” a representative from the fisheries sector said, recalling the time when the fishing vessels used to venture out to sea with a compass only, whereas everything and every activity are now reported instantly and live from the monitoring centre thanks to the state-of-the-art equipment.

“Fisheries and aquaculture is one of the most successful sectors under our government and the data speak for themselves. The seafood and fisheries exports have registered a five-fold increase with the exports’ value rising to over 100 million from 20 million euros few years ago,” the Premier said during a conversation with fisheries sector representatives.

The Premier underlined that further increasing the seafood exports and taking the fisheries sector to a new level is our ambition. “We can bring about an epochal change as a result of the project designed to transform the cargo port into a tourist harbour,” the Premier stated, assuring the sector representatives that the fisheries will be one of the major beneficiaries from this transformation and from the exponential growth in the number of visitors and tourists. “Fisheries should become part of the attraction and the tourist offer. Further out there lies the area of the yachts and new hotels, which will become part of the whole attraction,” Rama said.

In addition to Durres, the transformation process will include the fishing port in Vlora too, the project on which is ready and the project implementation process is set to kick off soon.