The ‘consultancy' company, Ernst & Young, has released another report, this time it’s all to do with the economy of the sea, worth 2.2% of the country's Gross Domestic Product.
Economic activities linked to the sea generated a turnover of €7.5 billion in 2016, concludes the study, employs ‘about’ 100,000 thousand people and contributes 3.1% of the national VAT take.
EY considers the major challenges to be the definition, segmentation and exploration of areas for aquaculture while taking care of environmentally protected areas. The consultants propose that a new marketing model for fish is defined and implemented, in particular by focusing on ‘area of origin’ as a quality mark.
The suited ones advise the establishment of joint ventures with international agents that can train employees and modernise Portugal’s remaining fishing fleet all are good ideas.
The ports were not spared the consultants’ gimlet eye as modernisation and specialisation both were suggested, as was “the integrated management of ports; the improvement of maritime and terrestrial infrastructures and accessibility and the country's allocation of a network of logistic platforms and connections in Short Sea Shipping, integrated with the European project Autoestradas do Mar and new rail accessibility,” exactly...
For the consultant, the major challenges for shipbuilding is the creation and conversion of shipyards to service and maintain recreational craft as there is no opportunity to build new ships.
Finally, tourism and leisure was covered, which involves 71,576 jobs and €4.479 million in turnover.
EY’s sages advised on the long-term unsustainability of current low-cost business models as well as the need for decisive investment in combating seasonality, volatility, fragmentation and environmental pressure on destinations.
This can be achieved by investments in innovation, diversification and differentiation of coastal and maritime tourism activities, by enhancing the synergies inherent in the territorial nature of the above, taking as an example, nautical tourism and the local cultural heritage, in order to guarantee its future sustainability.
There you have it, EY’s report mentions all sorts of things that the government could do to improve the economy of the sea.
However, the government’s desire to pull value from the deep, is limited to its covert encouragement of an oil and gas industry and its plans to allocate vast areas of an enlarged seabed zone to ocean-floor mining companies - two ‘get rich quick’ schemes that involve the minimum of both intelligence and work.
