Aqua Bridge’s hatchery located in Al-Lith, Makkah Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has achieved an important milestone by becoming the first hatchery to produce the juveniles of European Sea Bream (Sparus aurata) and European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) in the Kingdom at commercial scale. This is an important step in fulfilling the Vision 2030 of the Saudi Government which envisages a seafood production of 600,000 tons by 2030.

Aqua Bridge provides services for Aquaculture, Fisheries & Environment sectors specializing in majorly aquaculture operations & consulting principles. The GCC countries are expected to see an exponential growth in the aquaculture sector with an increased interest in diversification and better food security since most of the seafood is still imported in countries of the region.

Aqua Bridge started the upgradation of the existing facility in the year 2018 while the production of the juveniles at the facility commenced in the year 2019. Aqua Bridge produced 3 million juveniles in the year 2019 and has a production target of 10 million juveniles for the year 2020 of which 5 million juveniles have already been produced and delivered to local farms in 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The success of Aqua Bridge in Saudi Arabia and specifically the production of European Sea Bream and European Sea Bass juveniles can be directly attributed to the operational team lead by Aqua Bridge Technical Director - Mr. Panagiotis Tountas whose vast aquaculture expertise and novel production techniques were fundamental in ensuring the quality of the juveniles produced. He also holds the distinction of having successfully introduced the European Sea Bream and European Sea Bass in the Arabian Gulf region in 1999.

European Sea Bream and European Sea Bass are some of the most popular species for aquaculture projects in the region and the localized production of their fingerlings further enhances their appeal for production in the Saudi aquaculture sphere. Infact, the quality of the juveniles produced in Aqua Bridge hatchery has been vouched as giving substantially better results in terms of growth rate and survival as compared to juveniles that were previously imported. The Aqua Bridge Hatchery is also the first BAP-certified marine finfish hatchery in the GCC.

Aqua bridge currently has corporate offices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and has also expanded its operations into Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.

The list of species that Aqua Bridge works on are: