30 April 2021
At their meeting on Tuesday, 2 March 2021, Executive Council gave approval to take forward the signing of a 10-year lease between St Helena Government (SHG) and Saints Tuna Corporation Limited (STC) to lease the Fish Processing Factory located at Rupert’s, and to enter into an Agreement to help govern the relationship with the parties (together with the locally registered investors PQ Trading (STH) Limited).
SHG is now pleased to announce that the Lease and Agreement have been signed, and the STC plans to take over the Fish Processing Factory from 1 June 2021 and provide fish processing for the Island.
The STC will commence the refurbishment of the factory from June, and during the refurbishment period, an interim arrangement will be put in place by STC to ensure that fish is available to meet the demands of the local market.
Since February 2020, SHG had been providing a heavily subsidised service, processing fish for a low fee. STC will process fish to meet the local demand during this period of time, at a price which will allow them to break even. More detail will be made available from STC over the coming weeks.
The shareholders of the STC are all fishermen and vessel owners; with over 50% of the shares belonging to St Helenians. Eight commercial fishing vessel owners have signed up to be shareholders of the STC alongside PQ Trading (STH) Limited and will benefit from the economic sustainability of the fish processing plant.
STC will undertake commercial fishing, processing, marketing and supply chain activities with the prime objective of establishing a sustainable and environmentally friendly fishing industry that makes a significant contribution to the local economy, by producing high quality products for sale to the local market and for export.
Notes to Editors
Previous SHG communications have outlined information about the Fish Processing Industry on St Helena. This included statements regarding the fish processing business model (31 October 2019 and 20 November 2019) operational subsidy paid to the St Helena Fisheries Corporation and the requirement to adopt a new business model (13 December 2019), the termination of the company and the installation of an interim operation subsidised by SHG (29 January 2020), and the announcement of and information about a preferred investor (30 January 2020 and 28 February 2020), commercial fishing licence quotas for tuna (9 July 2020) and the approval of the Lease and Agreement (5 March 2021).
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SHG
30 April 2021