Trade, Commerce keen to stay with marine zone project

Secretary John Andrias says the Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry is happy to continue owning the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ) project in Madang.
“There was a NEC decision to transfer the ownership to KCH (Kumul Consolidated Holdings) but I believe there is a KCH board resolution, so basically we will revisit and take the matter back to NEC to leave the project to be implemented by (Department of) Treasury and Commerce and Industry,” Andrias said.
“We are happy to take on board and re-negotiate the new loan through the China Exim Bank if they are able to come on because they were the first to commit so we had the design completed in line with their funding.”
Andrias said the project was designed to cater for 10 canneries.
“Once the project is developed, we intend to host about 10 canneries. So far we have six.
“If we have space for 10, basically all the fish that is caught has to be brought onshore, and future – there could be policy interventions.
“We can look at innovative ways of bringing in all the catch for processing.
“We can simply give them licence to fish and bring all the fish onshore and the state can say certain percentage is free, maybe 50 per cent is free to be put into the cool storage where it can be auctioned and sold to processors.
“The risk of going out and owning a fishing vessel and fishing with all the additional costs, we have passed it on to the fishermen.”