RD Tuna: No Plans To Invest In Solomon - Too Remoteff

RD Tuna Cannery Ltd has no plans to acquire shares in Solomon Island’s Soltai Fishing and Processing Co although the Papua New Guinea cannery “keeps an open mind” for investment on the island-country.

This was clarified by Pete C Celso, RDTC managing director, in reaction to a wire news report last week saying that RDTC representatives who visited Honiara last week “were interested in government’s share in Soltai.” Mr. Celso told that while RD tuna “is keeping an open mind” for investment in Solomon Islands and other areas in the Pacific, Soltai is “definitely not part of the plan”.

The Soltai cannery is “located in a very remote area thus making logistics and infrastructure too complicated and not cost-effective to handle”, according to Mr. Celso whose cannery makes and exports the canned tuna brands “Diana” and “Dolly”.

The Solomon Islands government owns 51% of Soltai, while the rest of the shareholdings are controlled by the island’s Western province. The government had wanted to sell its shares because it could no longer sustain the operations of the cannery. The Solomon Times had earlier reported that Western province premier Alex Lokopio had opposed the sale of the government’s controlling shares to a foreign company, as it was not to the best interest of the island-country.

The newspaper said Mr Lokopio’s government was willing to acquire all the national government’s shares because it did not want the company to fall into the hands of a foreign company. Mr. Lokopio said once Soltai was sold it would most likely be a foreign-owned group that will stand to benefit, the newspaper said. “Most of the benefits from the operations will not remain in the country,” the Solomon Times said, quoting Mr. Lokopio.

It has been revealed that representatives of the Papua New Guinea Company, RD Cannery, were in the Solomon Islands last week holding discussions with senior government officers. The team, consisting of five RD representatives, arrived last week and is currently in Honiara holding meetings with government authorities. However, an officer from the Prime Minister’s Office, Fred Maetoloa, denied the allegations instead claiming that the visit by the RD Cannery representatives was to discuss the government’s tuna policy.