Fishing: Cameroon has a deficit of 110,000 tons of fish per year

Cameroon, whose fish supply is estimated at 30 000 tonnes per year, has an annual deficit of 110 000 tonnes of fish, according to statistics compiled by Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).In spite of a particularly fish-bearing seaboard, the country can not satisfy the "increasingly"

domestic demand due in particular to the inorganization of this activity and the fraud in the fisheries sector.

Consequently, Cameroon is turning to importing fish for an envelope of 125 billion CFA francs each year, the second most imported agri-food product after rice.
Yet, according to the Growth and Jobs Strategy Paper (GESP), the fishing industry is a driving force for the national economy, Scale industry.
In its report, the FAO mentions that, despite the relative low productivity of its marine waters, due to the narrowness of the continental shelf, the country has river basins with important fisheries potential.However, this activity suffers from an abusive exploitation of the resources carried out by foreign fishermen like the Beninese, Ghanaians, Malians, Nigerians ... but also of the illegal fishing carried out by Indo-Pakistanis, and especially of the Chinese on the territorial waters national.
According to observers, "using their vessels not in conformity with conventional fishing, they practice the activity in such a way as to capture, without distinction of species, all the aquatic fauna which they find in their passage" .
Between 2014 and 2016, the Cameroonian authorities boarded 22 foreign vessels for illegal fishing in the territorial waters of Cameroon.In June 2017, a Chinese ship was sentenced to pay a fine of 400 million CFA francs to the public treasury for illegal activity.

APA