Seychelles - Strengthening capacity to improve trade-related SPS conformity and capacity building for competitive fisheries export in Seychelles
Posted on: December 10, 2019
This programme it is being implemented under the fourth Pillar of the Programme: Market access and Standards.
The economy of Seychelles relies mostly on tourism and exports of tuna, and fish in general. For this reason, mariculture is considered as priority by Seychelles Fishery Authority (SFA) and will have an important role to play in the coming years to generate growth in the fisheries sector and also as an active contributor to the Blue Economy initiative.
This TradeCom II initiative it is being implemented under the third Pillar of the Programme: Trade Facilitation and strengthening competitiveness with the aim to:
- provide targeted support for quality development and export competitiveness in the Seychelles fisheries sector
- strengthen the capacity to understand and meet the requirements of main fish markets importation standards.
- build Institutional and management capacity of senior officials to meet SPS compliance obligations under the WTO Agreement and international standards.
During September 2019, three training workshops have been delivered. The first training workshop was on export competitiveness and was delivered to members of the Ministry of Trade, the Seychelles Fishing Authority and representatives of the Seychelles Revenue Authority. This training covered how fisheries and the fishing sector as a whole could utilise technology to become more competitive. The training workshop included a presentation on blockchain and how it is currently being used in the fisheries sector, as well as discussions on the current state of fisheries mobile applications and how their adoption could be used to enhance market competitiveness in the sector.
The second training workshop covered fish-handling and the participants were Sri Lankan fishing crews of the Semi-industrial tuna fleet as well as members of the Marine Training Academy. The purpose of this training workshop was to inform selected Sri Lankan crew members on tuna butchering techniques. The TAT worked with fish buyers from the private sector, in order to establish a standard tuna butchering technique.
The TAT also conducted a training workshop on export readiness to a group of senior officials from the Enterprise Seychelles Agency. This organisation’s main functions are to enhance the competitiveness of local SMEs, promote a conducive business environment and empower SME’s to emerge and grow. The agenda for the training workshop included topics such as import and export requirements on products of plant origin as well as an introduction to the WTO-SPS and TBT Agreements.
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