The workshop for the expansion and upgrading of Fishing Operations Monitoring and Recording Integrated System (OSPA), organised by the Directorate-General for Fisheries of the Ministry of Rural Development and Food, was successfully completed yesterday, Thursday, 7 November, at Athens Avenue Hotel in Athens.

The OSPA is the main digital tool for managing and monitoring fishing activities. The action, implemented by Information Society, the Ministry of Digital Governance’s central planning, development and implementation hub for digital transformation projects, is expected to be completed by the end of 2024, including a number of subsystems and applications, provided either as web applications or as mobile apps and concerning the entire range of fishing procedures.

At the start of the event, the Minister of Rural Development and Food, Mr Konstantinos Tsiaras pointed out: “To the government, supporting fisheries is not an obligation, but a political choice and national commitment. Greece, with the largest professional fishing fleet in the European Union, plays a leading role in the Mediterranean and, as he pointedly said, “the sector not only contributes to the Gross National Product, but also to creating thousands of jobs and to strengthening social cohesion.”

For his part, the Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Food, Mr Christos Kellas, during his speech, among others, called on “those involved in the fishing industry to make the best and most efficient use of the new Fisheries, Aquaculture and Seas Program, which exceeds the amount of 500 million euros.”

The event was addressed by the heads of Directorates of the Ministry of Rural Development and Food, the Attica Region and the contractors (Cosmote, IKnowHow SA).

Finally, the General Director of Information Society Projects, Mr Dimitris Giantsis stated in his speech: “Consistent with our commitments to intensify the implementation of the projects we announced, today we are pleased to deliver another completed project. Information Society is the public body that, with its experience and know-how in the implementation of ICT projects, manages to combine opinions and lead heterogeneous groups of people, i.e. all those who participate in the project, towards a common direction, marching at the right pace on the schedule of each project. Therein lies the success of the role of Information Society, as the problems in technology projects do not usually come from technology itself, but from heterogeneous multiplicity, lack of communication and central coordination, which Information Society brings to every project they undertake.”

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Owner of the project “Expansion/Upgrading of OSPA” is the Ministry of Rural Development and Food, and it is implemented with funding from the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund by Information Society SA.