The Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Derek Klazen has called on local entrepreneurs and the fishing industry to add value to all their products.

Klazen visited a polystyrene manufacturing plant in Walvis Bay.

The plant is owned by the Merlus Group of Companies, which invested about N$50 million to acquire the land.

Merlus is a fishing company that processes and exports fish to the European market. 

20% of the fish is exported as fresh hake by flying it from Walvis Bay, where it arrives in Spain the next day. 

The fishing sector remains one of the top industries, contributing to the country's economic growth, Gross Domestic Product, and export earnings, despite hardship and a bleak financial outlook the past two years.

This was reiterated by the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Derek Klazen, during the annual address to his staff in Windhoek.

The Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources has warned the public to refrain from approaching wandering seals in public spaces or on beaches because they are dangerous.

Seals use the period from November to February to gather at specific spots along the coast to breed and mate.

However, they may be found anywhere on the beach resting or may appear disturbed, starved, weak, or lost.

The Ministry warns the public not to disturb pups that may look lost on the beach or in the streets because their mothers may be in the process of relocating them.

An inter-governmental delegation, led by the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, which is in the ||Kharas Region to engage communities on the benefits of fishing, visited the Kameel River, a catchment area of the Neckartal Dam, to familiarise themselves with the situation on the ground.

The Kameel River on the banks of the Neckartal Dam was flooded after the area received above-average rainfall in recent years.

The flooding cut off a number of access roads and grazing fields for nearby farming communities.

Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Derek Klazen is concerned about labour unrest in the fishing industry.

Minister Klazen was addressing union representatives and fishing industry leaders at the launch of the National Fish Consumption Day at Walvis Bay.

Klazen specifically referred to a union which allegedly convinced more than 600 workers to unlawfully resign on 29 August.

The government, after negotiating with fishing companies, managed to get the workers employed in 2020 and 2021 in exchange for fishing quotas.

The Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Derek Klazen, has called on the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, or the Ocean Panel, to do more to market investment opportunities in the ocean economy.

This, Klazen says, will maximise the country's economic benefits. 

The minister made the call at the just-ended Ocean Panel on the margins of the 77th United Nations General Assembly in New York.