Philippine businessmen and their counterparts from Indonesia’s North Sulawesi have tightened their trade and investment ties with the launch of US$12 million cross-border investments.
Domingo Teng, president of the Philippine Socsksargen Federation of Fishing Associations and Allied Industries, said a group of Philippine businessmen recently sealed a deal with Indonesian partners to reactivate two tuna canneries.
He said the canneries, based in Manado and Bitung in North Sulawesi, Indonesia had been forced to cease operations, but now, one was being rehabilitated while the other had received fresh capital. “The groundwork has already begun, and we're expecting the two canneries to be fully active soon,†he said.
Among Philippine companies that have invested in the North Sulawesi canneries are the Damalerio Fishing Industries owned by the Damalerio family, which operates the former Estadha Pesca tuna cannery now in Manado. The other is the RD Group of Companies owned by Rodrigo Rivera, Sr., this company already operates a cannery in PNG (RD Tuna) and one in the Philippines (Philbest ).
Mr. Teng said the reopening of the canneries was expected to provide about 6,000 to 7,000 new jobs for North Sulawesi residents and 1,000 to 2,000 jobs for General Santos residents.
This trend means that in the least 6 months basically the entire tuna canning industry in Manado / Bitung has been taken over by Philippine tuna boat owners. The 3 out of 4 canneries in Manado Indonesia is now managed and owned by Philippine tuna industrialists.
The attractiveness to produce in Indonesia is also related to access to fishing rights in Indonesian waters. Indonesia has a very large resource of skipjack tuna. Since the resources within the Philippine EEZ cannot support any longer the need for skipjack raw material of the Philippine tuna industry in General Santos, tuna fishing companies need to find new resources and obtain fishing licenses in these new foreign waters.
Considering that General Santos City and Manado are geographically very close, this area forms an important strategic base for the Philippine tuna fishing fleet for the future. It also makes these fishing companies less dependent on independent tuna canneries in General Santos, and provides Philippine fishing companies a mean of forward integration within the canned tuna supply chain.