Regional investor keen on setting up multi-million dollar fish, seafood facility

A foreign investor has shown interest in establishing a multi-million dollar facility in St Vincent and the Grenadines for the purpose of processing fish and other marine products.

This disclosure was made by Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, and Rural Transformation Saboto Caesar, during a press conference held yesterday, April 18, at the Ministry’s conference room.{{more}}

“We have received a letter of interest from a regional company, based in Jamaica, but also operates out of Belize, to come to St Vincent to establish a multi-million dollar facility for the processing of fish and other marine products,” revealed Caesar.

“The Government of St Vincent and the Grenadines took a decision during the year 2015 to privatize the fisheries centres,” he added.

The press conference was held to discuss the Ministry’s 20-point 100-day plan, which is a document that seeks to come up with creative and strategic intiatives intended to improve the agricultural industry.

“Very soon there is going to be a launch of a particular project addressing the issue of the privatization of the Kingstown Fish Market and a way forward. That is expected to be unfolded in the next 100 days,” Caesar declared.

He added, however, that the plan also outlines how they are going to increase and develop the production of fish and fish products through the Kingstown Fish Market.

Caesar said that in addition to these plans, they have already began drafting a document, which is a comparative analysis of the cost of landing fish in St Lucia, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago.

“It is the quest of the Ministry to ensure that we have a package that is extremely competitive, and would allow us to enter into the market, the market of attracting a lot of these tuna boats…

“Already many of these tuna boats, they come to Chateaubelair, to Layou, to Barrouallie to purchase their bait. They purchase the bait, they go on the high seas and they land all their fish in Trinidad and Tobago.”

The Minister stated that with SVG not having an operational international airport as yet, it makes it more difficult to export fish.

“If the fish is landed here, it either has to go by boat or it has to go by AmeriJet to Trinidad and Tobago, and then to the United States of America,” Caesar explained.

He noted that it is an important coincidence that they are looking at landing more tuna here at the same time as the impending opening of the Argyle International Airport. (CM)