A large fish company wants to set up a processing factory on Phuket and bring 300 boats from Indonesia to chase the Andaman tuna schools, Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha heard today.
Seaspire International, a Taiwan-based company with a large Singapore operation, already has established a Seaspire Phuket Company and aimed to make the most of the sudden increase of tuna in the Andaman Sea, said the firm's local coordinator, Suppakorn Boonkaniad.
The company's 300 boats off Indonesia were ''ready to move'' to pursue the schools of tuna now in Phuket waters, he said.
Khun Suppakorn visited the governor at Provincial Hall in Phuket City today because a certificate is required from the Ministry of Commerce to allow Seaspire to export tuna to the US and Japan.
He said the Phuket-based processing factory would process and freeze tuna for export only. He added that about 200 Thai boats currently hunted tuna off the Andaman coast.
Seaspire had yet to finalize a location for the factory, which would employ locals. But he hoped the search would be finalized by the end of March.
Khun Suppakorn could not explain the reason why schools of tuna had flourished off the Andaman coast but said it could have something to do with global warming.
