Up to four tuna canneries are planned in Lae, Papua New Guinea’s second largest city and industrial centre, although the specific details about some of the projects are unclear.
Major fishing company Frabelle (PNG) Ltd along with two international companies (the Philippine-based Century Canning Corp and the Thailand-based Thai Union Corp, a subsidiary of Thai Union Frozen Products) is building one tuna processing plant on a 20-hectare property at Malahang industrial centre. The joint venture operates under the name Majestic Seafood.
The factory will process 350mt of fish a day - the biggest so far for any processing plant in PNG.
Another factory is being built by a Chinese company at a reported cost of US$20 million (K55 million). This on-shore tuna processing plant will be the first by a Chinese company in PNG.
It is being built by Zhoushan Zhenyang Deep-Sea Fishing Co, a subsidiary of Zhejiang Hailisheng Group Co Ltd with a joint venture partner from Taiwan. The plant will process 250mt to 300mt of tuna a day and employ some 3,000 local workers.
At the moment, the company does not fish in PNG waters but will do so once fishing licences have been granted. Several other Chinese companies are already operating in PNG waters.
The International Fisheries Corporation, a mackerel canning firm in Lae, has also indicated that it will begin to add tuna processing to its repertoire in 2010. Fish are to be supplied by Frabelle’s domestic fleet and the firm plans to expand from 40mt/day to 120mt/day with a target start date in 2010.
Papua New Guinea has two other tuna processing factories located in Madang (RD Tuna) and Wewak (South Seas Tuna Corporation) that have been beset by social and environmental problems that remain unresolved. Low pay, poor working conditions, landowner disputes and environmental pollution are all on-going problems that the PNG government has been unable to resolve.
There has been no information given by the tuna companies, the PNG government of the Morobe Provincial government about how the projects will comply with Papua New Guinea’s Constitutional Goals and Directive Principles and how they will promote integral human development, equitably share resources, provide for the strict control of foreign investment, use the environment wisely and protect Papua New Guinea ways.
With up to 12,000 low paid menial jobs on offer at the four new factories where are the staff going to be housed? Lae already has numerous squatter settlements, which are associated with increasing crime and domestic violence. The new tuna factories could well exacerbate the problem.
With up to 90% of the world’s fish stocks already gone, there is no evidence to suggest that fishing for tuna in PNG’s territorial waters is sustainable
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