Portugal's new commitments will be announced by the Minister of the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino, at the Our Ocean 2017 (OOC 2017) conference, organised by the European Union on Thursday and Friday with representatives from 61 countries, including ministers, international institutions, corporations, non-governmental organisations and scientists, who ahve been challenged to come up with actions to establish global ocean governance.

Vitorino told Lusa that Portugal will commit to "developing new regulations that address the issue of the introduction of non-indigenous marine species to ensure the effective implementation of the Ballast Water Convention" and to provide €1 million between 2017 and 2020 "to support the update of Information and Communication Technology Systems related to the Environment and ocean-based economic activities.

Another of the commitments to be announced in Malta by the Minister of the Sea will be to "significantly increase funding for deep sea scientific research, including studies on the environmental impacts of seabed mining."

Funding of studies on the environmental impacts of the exploration of marine mineral resources will be carried out as part of the European 'JPI Oceans' initiative on healthy and productive oceans launched in 2011 as an intergovernmental platform, currently involving 21 countries and covering allmaritime atreas of the European Union.

The commitments that Portugal plans to announce on Thursday in Malta are in addition to those already made at the previous Our Ocean conference in Washington in 2016, where the Portuguese government announced the launch of the Blue Fund, a financial partnership between public and private entities to develop the ocean economy, promote scientific work on the oceans and environmental protection.

The Blue Fund has €13.6 million for the current fiscal year, and tenders have already been launched to award funds to projects from "new entrepreneurs of the sea" and for promotion of renewable energies.

Tenders are also planned for projects in the areas of maritime surveillance and protection and maritime safety and the protection of human lives at sea.