WTD Tuna Project In India ff

By Atuna

The World Tuna Development International (WTD) is a tuna fishing company with projects all over the world. Around eight years ago, negotiations with authorities from the Andhra Pradesh district in southeast India started to take place to implement a fishing project that would deliver 500 new jobs to the local communities of the Bay of Bengal.

In March 2008, Indian authorities signed an agreement in which the state government would have 51% of the shares in the proposed joint-venture company named Andhra Pradesh Marine Fisheries Development Ltd (APMFD), while WTD would have 49%.

The WTD General Manager of the South Asian venture, Mr. Ashok Banerjee, affirmed that even though the project has been approved, there’s been a delay due to banks lower finance capacity caused by the global crisis.

However, he believes that the implementation of the project’s structure will be done this year and that APMFD will start fishing for tuna in April 2009.

Mr. Banerjee couldn’t say the estimated catch for that area, but since WTD only fishes big species, such as Yellowfin and Bigeye, using long-liners, he believes that the project will have little impact on the area’s tuna stocks.

The WTD projects are often related to social improvements to the local community in which it is implemented. According to WTD’s president, Mr. J. Shelton Baxter, politics and “informal restrictions” can be an obstacle for international investment and, by helping those communities, the company will gain the sympathy and collaboration of the local governments: “We may spend the same amount of money, the issue is where the money goes: to local official plans or to beneficial elements to the society”.

The social benefits include vaccination campaigns, small loans for local businesses and housing developments, training on fisheries’ work and marine conservation, cultural centers, etc.

The activities of each project vary from country to country, nevertheless, they usually represent:

The placement of 12 new long liners vessel + shore-side facilities (conservation facilities) + social project + the employment of 400 people = USD 20 million investment.

The current locations for WTD projects are: Ghana, Senegal, India, Dubai, Djibouti, Indonesia and Yemen.

Mr. Baxter sees the countries around the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf region and along the Brazilian coast as potential locations for future WTD projects.