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RM (File photo)
Gapi-Sociedade de Investimentos and IDEPA (Institute for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture) are jointly undertaking in Nampula province a training programme for operators in the small-scale fishing value chain.
In the last week of October, 20 fishing industry operators including small-scale fishermen, processors and small traders from the Angoche district, benefited from training in small-business planning.
This training is part of the technical assistance component supported by the Propesca government programme, whose implementation in all the country’s coastal provinces has been carried out by Gapi.
More than a hundred SMEs and small businesses in the sector have been able to access credit in the order of 65 million meticais through Gapi’s financial services since the end of 2016.
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The training organised and facilitated by Gapi in collaboration with IDEPA aims to improve the management skills of small-scale fishing operators as well as to stimulate market linkages in the fishing value chain.
In order to increase business incomes and performance, especially for small-scale fishermen, most of whom still engage in fishing using environmentally harmful technologies and techniques, Gapi has organised financial services geared to the different needs of the various players.
With the Propesca implementation, Gapi is promoting motorisation of artisanal fishing to boost productivity and connecting small fishermen with fish-processing and trading companies.
“We get out of here richer. The training has taught us that it is necessary to modernise our activity and make it a solution that can generate income,” Sabino Assane, President of the Angoche Fishermen’s Association, reported.
The district permanent secretary of Angoche, Ali Assane, called on fishing operators at the closing ceremony for collaboration between Gapi and fishermen and traders “as a way to guarantee what it takes to thrive in your business”.
Gapi’s northern regional director, João Maunze, SAID that similar activities were already underway or in preparation in the other districts and locations on the northern coast of Mozambique covered by Propesca.
He added that Gapi, in addition to funding from Propesca, had mobilised other resources for the development of fisheries, and was opening micro-credit units in these areas. In April of the current year it opened a microcredit service in Angoche, which has so far financed 51 operations to the tune of 4.5 million meticais.
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Vessel repair and maintenance, including a craft workshop for wooden boats, have already received funding, and to ensure access to the fuels used by small fishermen in their activities, Gapi has been funding fuel pump operators in the coastal zone.
Meanwhile, in the province of Zambézia, Gapi recently financed the acquisition of nine boat engines, thus stimulating greater availability of fish there, as well as in every province.
“This action is among nine Propesca credit operations: six in the Administrative Post of Pebane and three in the village of Cuassiane, for the current year, worth approximately 2 million meticais. These engines will increase the amount of fish in the market, which in turn will cause prices to fall,” Gapi manager in Quelimane, Nilza Francisco, says.
In order to ensure better access to and valuation of the production ofartisanal fishermen, Gapi is restructuring a small-medium local company, “Mariscos do Índico”,taking a schare o its capital and equipping it with the means to improve conservation systems.
Through improved technology, Mariscos do Índico’s artisanal fishery production is being sought by international markets and even mega-projects. Gapi is investing in this company via its shareholding unit, to promote the commercial private sector. By 2018, total funding for this investment is expected to reach one million dollars, João Maunze said.
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