Yalelo to invest $10m in aquaculture
YALELO, a Zambian-owned aquaculture firm, will this year invest more than US$10 million to expand production capacity to 20, 000 tonnes per annum.
Yalelo is one of the largest aquaculture firms in Africa.
Chief executive officer, Bryan McCoy, said the company was in the process of scaling up production to 20, 000 tonnes of fish per annum from the current 10,000. Mr McCoy was speaking in Lusaka.
“We are the largest fish farm in Africa in terms of production and we are distributing fish not just in Lusaka or Siavonga where the farm is based but in nearly in all parts of Zambia through more than 40 outlets,” he said.
Mr McCoy said the company was this year expected to increase the number of workers to over 1, 000 from 800 jobs registered last year.
Yalelo implements a scalable solution to ease the pressure on Zambia’s struggling wild-capture fisheries sector.
He said it was important for Zambia to take advantage of natural resources by not only becoming self-sufficient in fish production but also to reduce imports and return to be an exporter of fish.
Mr McCoy commended the Development Bank of Zambia (DBZ) for assisting Yalelo address production and distribution challenges through the financing in 2013.
DBZ provided about K12.5 million to Yalelo to address distribution and production constraints.
“In 2013 we reached out to the Development Bank of Zambia to see how they might be able to assist and DBZ was keen to support businesses that had potential to sustainable provide good and services,” Mr McCoy said.
Meanwhile, DBZ acting managing director Edward Mulilo said the bank would continue to support projects such as Yalelo which added to the social-economic development of Zambia.
DBZ, Mr Mulilo said, had a mandate to provide short, medium and long term finance to support Zambia’s economic development strategies for growth, wealth and job creation, as well as infrastructure development.
He said the bank would continue to provide tailor-made financial solutions to viable businesses ventures in order to assist them expand production.