This article was automatically translated from HIBAPRESS, the Arabic version:
Hibapress
The Dakhla seawater desalination station constitutes a structuring project combining technological innovation, environmental sustainability and socio-economic inclusion, in favor of sustainable and integrated agriculture, underlined, Friday in Dakhla, the Minister of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Water and Forests, Ahmed El Bouari.
This project fueled 100 % by wind energy will make it possible to permanently preserve the water table, while promoting the emergence of an agricultural pole integrated with a strong economic and social impact on a regional and national scale, said Mr. El Bouari in a press statement, on the sidelines of a field visit to the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region, to inquire about the progress of the progress and fishery.
Incidental within the framework of the new development model of the southern provinces, launched by SM King Mohammed VI, this project will help generate more than 25,000 permanent jobs and to strengthen the water and food security of the region, said the Minister, who was accompanied by the Secretary of State for Maritime Fisheries, Zakia Driouich, during this visit.
Mr. El Bouari, in this sense, recalled that it is the realization of a seawater desalination station with an annual capacity of 37 million m³, including 30 million m³ intended for irrigation of 5,200 hectares and 7 million m³ to the supply of drinking water from the city of Dakhla and the future Atlantic port.
Directed as part of a public-private partnership, this major project mobilizes a global investment of 2.6 billion dirhams and also includes a 60 MW wind farm to guarantee a sustainable energy supply, he said.
The project will also allow the equipment of 219 farms, 100 of whom will be allocated to young farmers in the region, contributing to the promotion of land and the installation of a new generation of operators.
In addition, Mr. El Bouari’s visit focused on two commercial infrastructure in the process of modernizing, namely the wholesale market and the proximity market for fruits and vegetables, made in partnership with the municipality of Dakhla.
These equipment aim to improve distribution circuits and sanitary conditions. The wholesale market displays an estimated progress rate at almost 90 %.
In the fishery field, Mr. El Bouari and Mrs. Driouich went to an industrial unit for processing seafood, with a capacity of 140 tonnes per day, in the final execution phase (95 %). Mobilizing 127 million dirhams of investment, this project will generate nearly 500 direct and indirect jobs.
For Ms. Driouich, Dakhla is now asserting itself as a national pole to enhance seafood, with an industrial development ecosystem.
The Secretary of State noted that by-products from transformation are also valued for the production of oil and fish flour, in a logic of circular economy.
In addition, the field visit continued to an integrated project dedicated to small pelagics, which provides for the creation of six industrial units in Dakhla for a budget of 1.16 billion dirhams and the generation of 4,378 jobs. This program aims to increase the share of locally valued resources and to strengthen high added value sectors.
At the headquarters of the Chamber of Maritime Fisheries of the South Atlantic, Mr. El Bouari and Ms. Driouich held a meeting with professionals in the sector, marked by the launch of the radio distribution program for craft boats operating on the South Atlantic facade.
Funded up to 20.6 million dirhams by the State Secretariat for Maritime Fisheries, this program aims to equip 6,183 boats, including 3,207 in Dakhla, in order to improve the safety at sea and the working conditions of fishermen.
This ministerial visit made it possible to note the concrete advances of the projects undertaken, online with the high royal orientations aimed at making provinces of the southern kingdom an integrated, competitive and sustainable development center in the strategic sectors of agriculture, maritime fishing, industry and tourism.
