ZAGREB, May 15, 2018 – The Croatian Ministry of Agriculture and the Israeli company Aeronautics on Tuesday signed an agreement valued at 4.87 million euro, 70% of which will be financed from EU funds, for the procurement of drones to monitor fishing activities.
The entire system consists of launching ramps, six drones and complete back-up logistics to monitor Croatia’s territorial waters and ecological and fisheries protection zone, and will be co-financed as part of the EU’s maritime and fisheries programme for 2014-2020.
Agriculture Minister Tomislav Tolušić said at the signing ceremony that the system would be used to monitor legal and illegal fishing activities in the Adriatic. It will also be used to monitor the entry of foreign fishing boats into Croatian territorial waters. “For 60% of the time, the system will be used by the Agriculture Ministry to monitor fishing activities while the rest of the time it will be used by the Defence Ministry for rescue and protection activities,” Tolušić said. Delivery is expected in November this year.
He underscored that this procurement was the most significant item in the plan to modernise the system of monitoring and controlling fishing activities until 2020 and that the project was conducted in cooperation with the Defence Ministry. The Agriculture Ministry will cover the procurement costs whereas the Defence Ministry will be responsible for logistic support and handling the equipment, he explained.
The Deputy CEO of Aeronautics Dany Eshchar said that this was one of the most advanced such systems in the world. The Orbiter drone can fly 7 hours and cover an area of 150 kilometres. He explained that the drones were very quiet with a strong camera and excellent zoom capacity and can fly at an altitude of up to 6 kilometres.
Eshchar said that the company has clients in 55 countries, mostly in Europe, but that they also do business with many companies in the USA.
