Technical Information Services for Smallholder Fisheries and Promotion of Inter-Regional Trade
Background
To improve productivity and market access for the small-scale fishery sector across the Arab Region, INFOSAMAK assisted 9 participating companies from Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen.
The main aim of the project was for the countries to adopt and market selected new value –added products. This involved identifying specific markets and enhancing markets through promotion. Producers focused on improved quality, certification and other market requirements. Investment needs to accomplish these improvements, and to develop aquaculture, were assessed and met with the supervision and assistance of INFOSAMAK experts and consultants.
Value-added Products
The best value-added products, in terms of quality and market 
potential, that could be adopted by the beneficiary companies were chosen through discussions among fish producers and experts in participating countries.
Moroccan producers adopted filet, ‘fish-based steak’, ‘Fish Murguez’ and ready-made meals using their usual catches of sole, umbra, goatfish, John Dory, and more. Mauritian producers created filets and frozen products from white fish, sea bream, mullet [flesh], octopus and cuttlefish. Shrimp, sardines and tuna found their way into cans, brines, and marinades at upgraded plants in Tunisia. Yemen focused on cooked lobster and mussels. Furthermore, producers refined and re-defined their choices: fish rolls, roasted fish, fish sausage, ready-to-eat products – for Morocco’s 2 companies.
Marketing
Feasibility studies of the products came next, including analysis of what would be needed to upgrade existing facilities to produce these new products economically. As a result, facilities now meet quality and certification standards required in the intra-regional and international markets. Accordingly, new quality assurance systems along HACCP lines were implemented, so that handling, freezing, storage, processing and packaging procedures and conditions were improved.
Promotion
Initial market promotion for new value-added products began with buyer-seller meetings in Agadir Morocco, in 2001, where 64 stakeholder companies, institutions and ministries from 18 countries participated. A second three-day buyer and seller meeting followed in 2004 in Cairo, Egypt, where partner companies had further opportunities to canvass new markets and seek ideas for potential growth of the new value-added products. They made contacts and developed partnerships and union relations at regional and international levels. About 80 participants from 19 countries and international organizations took part in this event which marked the founding of the “INFOSAMAK club of Arab producers and exporters of fishery products”. A third buyer-seller meeting was held in 2005, in Muscat Oman with eighty delegates from sixteen countries. The agenda included traceability, quality, labeling and marketing seafood products according to EC regulations.
Quality Assurance
The Casablanca seminar (May 2002)
The first year of project implementation was marked by a seminar on quality control, in Casablanca, Morocco, to establish and monitor quality assurance of the newly adopted value-added products. Over 25 regional inspectors and 75 quality controllers at the production level were trained in technology and quality control of value-added products and the processing environment, and in safeguarding against potential risks related to consumption of sea products. A full menu of activities covering all relevant aspects of quality assurance included conferences, presentations, debates and discussions about strategies and obstacles. Demonstrative visits to a fish product freezing plant, a fish depot and a fishing port were combined with the workshop dedicated to HAACP measures. Some technical aspects particular to the Arab Region were presented: regarding celaphods, small pelagics, deep sea fish, and canned fish.
Tunis Workshop on technology, quality and marketing (October, 2002)
The workshop’s aim was two-fold. First, it aimed to definitively identify and approve selected products to be developed and introduced by the participating companies. Secondly, it sought to conduct trainings on aspects of technology, quality and marketing of the value-added products for new national linking organizations and officials from regional federations and public organizations. Visits were organized to partner companies to prepare and pilot test products. The workshop’s scientific program focused on recent market trends of seafood products – how consumers tend to favor processed, value-added products; new products and the technology to make them; quality aspects; and marketing. The last day was allocated for visits to the port of Bizerte, a fish processing unit, a bivalve mollusk processing plant, and finally an export plant for live rock lobster. The workshop was attended by thirty participants from the private sector and other entities from Algeria, Bahrain, Brazil, France, Italy, Malaysia, Morocco, Mauritania, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.
Investment Plans
Development
To develop and market new value-added products and create 
AK staff and a fish processing expert consultant first revisited each company from December 2003 to March 2004. With the input they received during these visits, INFOSAMAK staff were able to finalize which value-added products would be best to develop. Pilot samples of these products were displayed at the Cairo buyer-seller meeting in April, 2004. Technical information on the manufacturing of these items were gathered and included in the manual published at the project’s conclusion
Feasibility study of value-added products and technical manual (2003-2004)
The manual titled “Analysis of Market and Feasibility Study for Value-added Seafood Products” is comprised oftwo parts. The first part is a detailed analysis of the seafood market focusing on the European Union,which is the main importer of seafood products from the Arab Region. The second part consists of estimates of production costs for ten selected products and investments required to make them. A brief description of each product is followed by a simplified production diagram as well as a list of the equipment required for manufacturing the products – specifically freezing and packaging equipment. The manual provides practical tools and guidance to fishery sector stakeholders in the Arab region helps to expand the production of new value-added seafood products and ultimately upgrades the fishery industry in Mauritania, Tunisia, Yemen and Morocco>.
Conclusion
Dissemination of project results in these two publications at the Terminal Workshop in Cairo (2006) was bolstered by discussions of project experiences and lessons learned asall seven participating companies had conducted pilot trials, prepared value-added products, and established market contacts. High appreciation was expressed for training on market access requirements, especially quality control training courses and traceability workshops. A consensus emerged expressing a need for more help to be region-specific and case-specific, even if on a product-per-product basis.
