Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is set to host its largest ever exhibition related to sustainable seafood production on 4-6 February, with over 12,000 visitors due to attend.

Professor Kevin Fitzsimmons believes that there are plenty of positives to be taken from the last 12 months in aquaculture and has an optimistic outlook for the sector in 2024 – but mention the fisheries and marine ingredients lobbies to him at your peril.

After gaining her master’s in aquaculture in Gran Canaria, Nourhan Ali has gained an impressive range of farming experience in Egypt and is now a consultant for the Saudi Aquaculture Society.

Despite its isolated desert location, Naqua – which produces shrimp and barramundi in Saudi Arabia – is in the process of securing sufficient funding to more that double its output to 250,000 tonnes of seafood each year by 2030.

Despite being dominated by the production of a single commodity, shrimp farming is a remarkably disparate business with a huge variety of business models and production techniques.

Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk Fisheries Company recently hatched its first batch of native sobaity bream larvae – a breakthrough that could pave the way to diversifying the Middle East’s burgeoning aquaculture sector.

Petros Thomas, who’s Greek and been in the marine aquaculture sector for 32 years, is currently working as assistant general manager and production operation manager for the Tabuk Fisheries Company in Saudi Arabia.

Victoria Alday-Sanz, director of biosecurity and breeding programmes at Saudi Arabia's National Aqua Group (NAQUA), talks about the challenges of looking after 80,000 tonnes of fish and shrimp each year.