Rural Development and Foods Minister Lefteris Avgenakis on Saturday declared the start of the first “Blue Horizons” conference jointly dealing with fishing, fish-farming, and fishing tourism, organized by the agriculture ministry. He said the aim was to formulate a national strategy on fishing and fish farming that would make these sectors the dominant pillars of the new economic and production model of the Greek economy, ANA reports.
Avgenakis said the ministry’s goal was to take fishing “off the picture postcards” and turn it into a key industry while pointing out that the Greek fishing fleet was the largest in the EU and the sole source of income for 15,000 Greeks.
Among the problems faced by the sector, Avgenakis listed the energy crisis, the climate crisis, and invasive species. He also pointed to new restrictions to free fishing imposed by European Union Green Deal policies and offshore wind parks, saying the goal was to “bridge” these trends and help Greek fishing adapt to the new conditions, making it competitive and sustainable.
He pledged that the state would support fishing, as part of a policy of supporting and developing the primary sector, while he also underlined the potential of fishing tourism for the growth of the fishing sector and fish farming as an answer to the global food supply problem.
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