Last month during a meeting which was held in Italy, between the Namibian and the Italian businessmen, it was suggested that the new director of Food Import and Export Agency intend to import fish directly from Namibia. Mr. Alexandro Lamana said that it would be more practical and cheaper to import hake directly from Namibia rather than to get it through Spain.
According to Mr. Lamana, getting fish products from Namibia through Spain is very expensive and bulky and the surcharges make the fish products more expensive. The other issue that they have is that they do not receive the fish products that they ordered. If for example, Spain does not have hake in stock, they will send crabs or other products they have in stock. In other words, they are not 100% satisfied to deal with Spain concerning the seafood products as they always get leftovers.
The representative of Italy intends to visit Namibia and start dealing directly from there and find a way to form partners with the Namibian fisheries.
The fish products exported from Spain are the swordfish, crabs, hake and rock lobster. In Namibia, the average landings per year are approximately about 500 000metric tones and 90% of the fishes are exported to Europe, Asia, USA and the rest of Africa. The recorded value for 2009 was of 7 million Namibian dollars. The Marine Resources and Fisheries permanent secretary Ulitala Hiveluah suggested that the Italian business people begin to invest in the processing, marketing and exploring of the marine resources in Namibia. She highlighted that the Namibian Government will always continue to encourage foreigners to participate in the exploring of marine resources through joint beneficial scheme joint. She also added that there are great potential investments in the local fisheries industry especially for the large pelagic fish, seals and horse mackerel.
