Black Sea resort town of Batumi hosts Blue Economy conference

Georgia’s Black Sea resort town of Batumi has hosted the 2017 Black Sea Stakeholder Conference on Blue Economy today.

Building on the success of the previous three events, in Bucharest (2014), Sofia (2015) and most recently in Odessa (2016), the conference has turned into a main forum for institutional and private stakeholders working on maritime affairs in the Black Sea to discuss common actions to:

• Support blue growth
• Support integration
• Share innovative business practices
• Improve marine knowledge and enhance marine environment
• Promote maritime careers
• Identify sources of funding for maritime projects
• Seek partners to fulfil them

Representatives from the Black Sea countries, including Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine discussed the above-mentioned topics during the conference.

This year, the conference also took stock of the implementation of the Bucharest declaration adopted in October 2016 on sustainable fisheries and discussed concrete actions to improve the sustainability of fishing resources, particularly with regard to scientific advice, sustainable small-scale fisheries, capacity building.