Economic Growth Parliamentary Secretary José Herrera addressed a session at the Commonwealth Business Forum entitled ‘Supporting the Blue Economy’ at Hilton Malta on Wednesday.
Dr Herrera emphasised the importance of this sector for a small island State like Malta and stated the government’s intentions to add even more value to it in the coming months.
“The blue economy has been featuring high on the international agenda for the past decade as an area of potential economic growth. Most Commonwealth countries, including Malta, have great dependence on this sector. For island states it is intrinsically intertwined with nearly all other sectors of the economy – be it tourism or manufacturing. It is therefore vital that the Blue Economy is developed in a sustainable and integrated manner,” Dr Herrera said.
The maritime sector and its opportunities are as large as they are diverse and unless coordinated it will remain a challenge to unlock the potential.
Time may be opportune to establish a blue economy platform for Commonwealth nations
For countries to expand their maritime potential, it is thus imperative to build on marine knowledge and data, plan maritime space, carry out the necessary surveillance and adopt sea basin strategies which bring together the littoral states where information is exchanged and common policies promoted.
All these are the foundation of the Integrated Maritime Policy launched by the European Commission in 2007 and urging member states to adopt their own national policy.
The policy promotes the development of a blue economy for our country. In light of this, Dr Herrera said: “Malta has worked on this path and in June this year we launched our national integrated maritime policy and implementation strategy; a policy that focuses on Malta’s strengths whilst giving space for new prospects.
“It is along these lines that we identified our blue growth areas as logistics, services, energy and food from the area with horizontal integrators covering education and research, security and surveillance, environment and maritime spatial planning and governance,” he said.
Successful implementation of the Blue Growth Strategy will not only result in an increase in activities and the economy that is directly linked to the sea but also in an increase in the ancillary and support services associated with the marine operations.
This multiplier effect of maritime affairs is to be accurately measured – on both the direct and indirect activities – it needs to be clearly identified. The compilation of sucha database will provide a focused development and investment of human capital and infrastructure which shall result in more high-quality jobs.
In today’s globalised era, good governance must be developed with an international perspective.
Adopting international regulations such as those of the International Maritime Organisation, the International Labour Organisation or the United Nations Environment Programme, as well as other regional policies such as the EU or Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is crucial to the development of ocean governance where sub-regional programmes, agreements and conventions need to be built on consensus.
The Parliamentary Secretary said he hoped for the foundation of a greater collaboration between member nations of the Commonwealth.
“Time may be opportune to establish a blue economy platform for Commonwealth nations where we can develop governance models that can make optimal use of financial resources for development in the sector,” he concluded.
The Commonwealth Business Forum is part of the CHOGM 2015 currently being held in Malta.