Fishing projects for Madang, Morobe to boost economy

By ANCILLA WRAKUALE
MADANG and Lae will see major fisheries projects soon after a signing in Port Moresby yesterday between the state, the two provincial governments, and companies, Nambawan Seafood Tuna Ltd and Niugini Tuna Ltd.
Nambawan Seafoods will be based along Malahang Road in Lae while Niugini Tuna will be at Vidar along the North Coast Road in Madang.
Fisheries Minister Job Pomat said the tuna processing plants would generate foreign investment into PNG economy when in full production and would have an annual turnover of K328 million in export revenue.
Pomat said the proposed development of an integrated fisheries development project and associated infrastructure in Vidar was part of the move by the government to encourage onshore tuna processing in PNG, especially at the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone.
The proposed integrated fisheries development project by Niugini Tuna will include tuna fishing, tuna loining and canning and fish meal processing.
Pomat said the investment would in turn have a positive multiplier effect on the economy through spinoffs to local companies and boost the fisheries sector contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP), the country’s balance of payments and foreign reserves.
The tuna processing plant in Lae will be developed at the cost of K15 million and the Madang project at K10 million.
Niugini Tuna is a tripartite joint venture between RD Corporation of the Philippines, Fair Well Fishery Group of Taiwan and Tri Marine International of Singapore.
They will build a processing plant that can produce 200 tonnes of tuna loining and canning per day.
RD Tuna Canners chairman Rodrigo Rivera said fish would be supplied by company-owned or chartered purse seine vessels and other fishers from the Parties to the Nauru Agreement member countries in the Pacific.
He said their major markets for their products would be in Europe, using the interim economic partnership agreement with European Union that gave free access to PNG products to the European market.
He said infrastructure work would start as soon as possible and should take up to one and half years before production began.