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Fishing troubles now hitting Fiji

Another fishing company yesterday said it is facing difficulties because of the problems affecting the industry.Tripacific Marine Limited, a major Suva fish processor and exporter fresh and frozen fish, said they face problems of supply from their main supply, Solander.Their comments follow the recent announcement by Solander (Pacific) and Fiji Fish that they are reducing operations because of the impact heavy fishing by subsidised foreign fleets is having on the local tuna industry.Tripacific Marine’s export markets are to the United States, Europe and Japan and ready to eat tuna in pouches to Australia and New Zealand.In a statement, Tripacific Marine general manager Uttam Kumar said: “Solander has been a major supplier of quality certified fresh and frozen fish to Tripacific for exports to USA, Europe and Japan.“Any effect on their operation will definitely affect our company’s operation as well as this will mean less fish to process and export.”He said they are now evaluating the extent of the effect on their operatons.“But redundancies are inevitable as we have already suffered low volumes in past two to three months and reduced overall volumes for the whole year 2013.“Unfortunately it is coming at a time when we have created large customer base in major markets for value added fish products and had expected to turn around in 2014.”Solander general manager, Radhika Kumar said they will ensure however that the quota to their export markets are not affected by the situation at hand.“Solander is running half its fleet and making losses only to keep the supply going,” Ms Kumar said.