West Sumatra Exports Frozen Tuna To USA For First Timeff

West Sumatra is to export, for the first time, 30 tons of tuna fish to the United States through Padang’s Bungus ocean fishing port at the end of April, a local fisheries official said.

”PT Dempo which has been assigned to conduct the fish export has expressed its readiness, and the company now only needs to prepare a 40-foot container for the purpose,” Yosmeri, head of the provincial marine and fisheries office said Thursday.

The container would have to have a cold-storage capacity of at least minus-20 degrees Celsius and be provided by PT Dempo itself, Yosmeri said.

He said, so far, four fishing boat owners had expressed their readiness to catch tuna fish to meet the US demand.

The four fishing boat owners were part of 58 national business people who had expressed preparedness to catch good quality tuna fish and export it from West Sumatra.

To be able to catch tens of tons of tuna fish, the fisheries businessmen would also have to provide hundreds of thousands of milk fishes which are needed as bait to catch the tuna.

Yosmeri also said, to accommodate sea fishery activities in West Sumatra in the near future, the province needed to build docking facilities for boats of more than 100 gross tons whereas the existing facilities were only for boats of 30 gross tons.

The province would use funds from its 2009 budget to construct the needed additional docking facilities, including the lengthening of the Bungus fishing port’s pier from the present 100 meters to 189 meters.