The Federal Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou) with the island state of Malta to develop a world class industrial fish township in Nigeria.
This is contained in a statement signed by Mr Olusegun Mogbojuri, the Agricultural Attache to the Malta Embassy in Nigeria, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.
The statement said that Mogbojuri, who is also the Chairman of Malta’s International Fish Resources Park ( IFRP) signed the agreement on behalf of the Maltese Government while the Provost, Federal College of Fisheries and Marine Technology, signed on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“I have ordered the issuance of a month-long call for Expression of Interest for Private-Public Partnership in financing the delivery of six industrial fish parks and townships to the Nigerian government.
“Over 250, 000 tonnes of farmed fish will be produced yearly in each of the six locations.
” Several value chain industries and services that will be set up around the facilities will create over a million direct and indirect employments,” it said.
The statement said that an implementation committee comprising the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Federal Governing board for the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR) and IFRP had been constituted.
It said that the committee had been set up to execute the MoU ahead of the EU financing summit for IFRP holding in Malta later this year.
“Parties invited will partner IFRP which, going by the operation of the MoU is to design, build, operate and transfer (DBOT) the facilities on lands provided by the Federal Government of Nigeria, for a fixed tenure,” the statement added.
According to the statement, Malta, an EU state, in the Mediterranean had successfully completed landmark fisheries projects.
The projects, it said, included a national aquarium and an industrial township visited by several Nigerian delegations in the recent past.
2014 The Guardian