Papua New Guinea has announced plans to build 10 more tuna canneries across its archipelago, with the country’s Minister for International Trade and Investment Richard Maru announcing that the factories would be built by foreign investors.
“About 80 percent of the 550,000 metric tons of fish caught in PNG waters is not being processed in the country, and we import approximately USD 36 million [EUR 30.5 million] worth of processed fish. This is unacceptable. We cannot continue to allow this. We want our own industry to supply the market,” Maru said in a Facebook post. “The intention is to have the processing capacity in the county to process all catch for every licensed boat that operates within our waters. We want the industry to focus on supplying the domestic market first before exporting. This is the strategic direction of the government.”
Many in the Oceanic country’s seafood industry acknowledge the need for more canneries, but some stakeholders are wary over the feasibility of the plan.
Sylvester Pokajam, the chairman of the Papua New Guinea Fishing Industry Association, told SeafoodSource that the ambitious plan is “all talk” and that the vague promise of foreign investor funding needs to be backed up with preferential government policies.
“We do need more factories,” Pokajam said. “The problem is we need to clarify how these are paid for. The processing plants, wharves, and discharge facilities … if we don’t clarify who’ll pay, the foreign investors won’t come.”
Pokajam pointed out that Papua New Guinea established six tuna-processing plants in the 10 years that he was managing director of the country’s National Fisheries Authority and that incentives were key to getting them built.
“All of the plants were established by foreign investors. What was crucial was the policy granting free access to the fish in PNG’s exclusive economic zone [EEZ]. Currently, the government charges foreign fish processors for access to PNG’s EEZ,” he said.
Though some of the foreign investment is vague at the moment, the government has established a joint venture between Netherlands-owned RD Canners and a PNG government-operated entity within the new Madang Integrated Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
Still, Pokajam said this joint venture is not as likely to be as successful as an incentivized project fully backed by foreign investors would be.
“I can’t think of government that runs a business being successful,” Pokajam said. “We should encourage foreign direct investment through incentives; we want employment and export earnings. Tuna is a sustainable industry, unlike oil and gas, when managed well.”
Meanwhile, Papua New Guinea ships most of its tuna to the E.U. because it has preferential, tariff-free access. China has also targeted the archipelagic nation’s waters, but Pokajam said it has no interest in investing in on-shore processing.
“They are only interested in catching tuna,” he said.
In fact, Chinese regional governments have offered subsidies to distant-water fishing companies to bring their catch back home for processing.
