Tax-free access to China, along with clean and calmer waters, are the main draws for a major Chinese fisheries player now setting up operations in Brunei.
Guangxi Hiseaton Foods is raising shrimp as well as golden pompano, grouper, barramundi, and cobia at a 2,000-hectare offshore site in the Meragang region of Brunei, company executives told SeafoodSource at the Seafood Expo Asia in Hong Kong this month.
Brunei is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with which China has a free trade agreement. Hence, product can be shipped back to China duty-free. Hiseaton also has a 22-hectare hatchery site and a halal-certified processing plant in Brunei, and exports to North America and to Australia.
Brunei is also home to an offshore barramundi cage farm being built by Singapore-based Barramundi Asia, which signed a contract with Brunei’s Department of Fisheries earlier this year giving it access to the country’s waters. The venture uses Norwegian salmon farming technology and is headed by industry veteran Joep Staarman.
