This week, a Blue Economy CRC team including Greg Johannes, Dr John Whittington, Angela Williamson, Prof Chris Carter and Prof Evan Gray participated in events associated with the Belgium Trade Mission to Australia.
Together with our partners University of Ghent and DEME Group along with the Flemish Fish Auction, European Food Centre and Marifish.Inc we co-hosted a Blue Economy Seminar, ‘The Blue Acceleration: a strong Australian-Belgian partnership as a motor to upcoming industries at sea’, followed by a luncheon in the presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid of Belgium, Representative of His Majesty the King.
The seminar included the importance of the Blue Economy for Australia and a global perspective, emerging sectors, the challenge of scaling up and marine nature-based solutions for climate adaptive coastal protection. It gave a comprehensive overview of Belgium’s pioneering efforts in the field of the blue economy, more specifically in sustainable seafood production, offshore renewable energy and innovative fishing.
The seminar concluded with a luncheon attended by Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid of Belgium, Minister of Finance and Budget, Housing and Heritage Matthias Diependaele, and the Vice-Minister President of the Walloon Government and Minister for the Economy, Foreign Trade, Regional Planning and Agriculture Willy Borsus.
“Both Ghent University and DEME Group have been collaborating with Australian partners for several years through their membership of the Blue Economy CRC. We now aim to take this Australian-Belgian partnership to the next level as we are tackling the same challenges from different sides of the globe and we share the same values in terms of collaboration, communication and forward-looking yet pragmatic integrated ocean management.”
The visit concluded with the signing of an MOU with Blue Cluster as we commit to exploring possibilities for collaboration to foster innovation and responsibly grow the global blue economy.
As Blue Economy CRC Chair Greg Johannes states:
“We want to support our participants and Australian communities and consumers to apply the world’s best ideas and technology to our blue economy environment, and arrangements like our MOU with the Blue Cluster will help ensure we get access to them, wherever they are.”
We look forward to future collaborations with our Belgium partners and many exciting projects on the horizon.
