Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture of Seychelles, Pamela Charlette has said that work is underway to formalize a memorandum of understanding between Seychelles and Maldives to share technical expertise in the fields of Fisheries and Agriculture.
Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture of Seychelles, Pamela Charlette was on PSM News' talk show, ‘Talk Maldives’, to talk about the relations between Maldives and Seychelles, and also on the work being conducted by the coastal countries in the India Ocean Tuna Commission. During the programme, Minister Pamela noted that sharing ideas is the main objective if Maldives and Seychelles want to increase productivity in fisheries and agriculture. She also stressed on the need also to increase knowledge and expertise in these sector. Speaking on fisheries, she said that Seychelles is a little bit advanced and Maldives can learn from Seychelles. She said that there are certain areas like the value chain in fisheries that Seychelles can learn from the Maldives, especially when it comes to fish processing itself.
Speaking about the agriculture sector, the Minister from Seychelles said that her country is not yet in the level that they aspire to be, citing that it is only now that they are planning to expand agriculture to the outer islands, whereas this has been done by Maldives a long time back. She said, establishing an MoU to share information and expertise in these areas would benefit both countries.
It is these kind of exchanges, these kind of experiences or good practice that Seychelles and Maldives need to learn from each other. We can identify in which areas we can help each other, whether it's training or whether its exchange and expertise in these sector. We are also formalizing this into an MoU between Seychelles and Maldives. It's not ready yet, so eventually we will be signing MoUs for us to exchange our ideas and experience. Well the MoU between Seychelles and Maldives will be based on technical expertise firstly, and then as an when we go further into it, then we will see if there will be exchanges or if there will be any practical experiences that we can exchange between the two countries. She said that Maldives and Seychelles have a lot in common as coastal states, citing that both countries face similar challenges be it due to climate change, in the field of agriculture or fisheries.
The Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture of Seychelles stated that there is a lot for Maldives and Seychelles to learn from each other and share our experiences our best practices in both fisheries and agriculture.