Walvis Bay now home to calamari factory

Floris Steenkamp & Rudi Bowe

Walvis Bay boasts a new jewel in its fishing industry crown. an N$25 million squid processing facility that is geared to process 10 metric tons of product per day and at full capacity would provide 204 new fishing industry jobs.
The processing plant is a joint initiative by Tunacor right holders (Tuna-cor, Diaz-, Huab-, Ombaye-, Empire- Morcar-, Compass-, Atab-, Ozohi-, Tumina-, Voorbok- and Belinda Fishing and Corvima right holders (Namibian Fishermen Association, Agatha Bay-, Khoi Fishing and African America Trading).
Fisheries Minister Bernhard Esau officially opened the Sea-fresh squid processing plant on Friday and explained squid will be imported from countries bordering the West Atlantic Ocean.
Locally the squid would be worked into tubes and rings (calamari tubes and calamari rings), both for the local- and export markets. In his address Minister Esau welcome the fact that the factory involves itself in the global sourcing of unprocessed marine products and adding value to it locally. In the process it creates jobs, it attracts new and efficient processing technology to Namibian shores and it assists in foreign export earnings when these value-added products are exported.
“There is an ages old adage which says that those how have, more will be added to them. We have enough fish resources in Namibia which can act as a magnet for factories and other infrastructure development here in Namibia. Hence, to attract fish from international waters, and other countries, in order to add value locally, create jobs locally and retain value locally”.
The Minister further said global sourcing of unprocessed marine products and adding value locally will also alleviate pressure on fish stocks in Namibia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.