Funding To Develop Aquaculture & Fisheries

Next week it will hold a tender for the design and construction of the exchange on a 14 millipon investment, ANPA Chairman, Marian Manaila, told a news conference.

"This investment will help authorised fishermen to sell their fish; there will be tax auditing and the authorities will get information about the fish catches," said Ms Manaila.

RomanianNewsAgency reports that ANPA is also planning on building a 10 million fishing port at Midia under the 2007-2013 Fishery Operational Programme.

Using similar funds, ANPA will also be training authorised fishermen in Romania under a pilot project worth 70,000.

"We will design similar programmes for Black Sea and Lower Danube fishermen. Training will provide both book-keeping elements, as many fishermen operate as authorised individual traders, labour protection, navigation on the Danube and conformity with European Union fishing regulations," Ms Manaila explained.

There are currently 1,500 authorised Danube Delta fishermen, 1,000 Black Sea fishermen and nearly 800 Lower Danube fishermen.

Although the number of fishermen have stayed constant since the 1990s, Romania's Black Sea fishing fleet has been depleted. Out of 30 fishing boats in excess of 25m in 1990, only two are still functional, as they were replaced by more than 400 small boats owned by the fishermen.

Under the Fishery Operational Programme, Romania is allocated 307.518 million throughout 2013 to finance fishery, aquaculture and processing investments, 230.714 million of which is EU assistance under the European Fisheries Fund (EFF) and the remaining national co-financing.

There are 13 million allocated axis one- to adjust the fishing fleet of Romania; 140 million for axis two- aquaculture; 40 million for axis three - common interest measures; 100 million for the development of fishing areas and 14.3 million for technical assistance.