The construction of a fishing port and onshore support facility in the municipality of Porto Amboim, in Angola’s Kwanza Sul province, a private capital initiative, required an investment of at least US$50 million, according to the chief executive of the respective management company.

Cardoso Pereira told the Angop news agency that construction started in 2014 and has a mooring area for four trawlers simultaneously, with four cold storage units with a capacity of five tonnes each.

The CEO also said that the company owns 15 fishing vessels but due to a lack of operating licenses, has hired companies certified by the Angolan government to catch the fish along the coast.

He also said that 50 new vessels, with a capacity of 120 tonnes each, are already being built in China, 20 of which are ready, and now only require inspection by the Angolan Ministry of Fisheries and the Sea in order to be sent to the country and start fishing.

The project has several phases, the construction of the fishing port and onshore support facilities being the first. The second involves the construction of a Regional Centre for Fisheries Surveillance and a Fisheries School with a capacity for 150 students and the third, the modernisation of the distribution system in Kwanza Sul and later in other provinces through the construction of warehouses.

A similar project was carried out in 1987 by the state-owned Empresa Nacional de Pesca Industrial (Peskwanza), an initiative of the Angolan State aimed at catching, processing, preserving, freezing and distribution. At the time it operated 17 vessels with a capacity of 150 to 250 tons of shellfish, crustaceans and fish and a cold chain with a capacity of 300 tonnes per day.

The Minister of Fisheries and the Sea, Maria Antonieta Baptista, said last May that the state-owned company is in technical bankruptcy, a process of decay that began in 2000 for reasons she did not explain. (Macauhub)