On September 1, 2021, the groundbreaking ceremony of the Tarawa fishing base of OCEAN FAMILY Christmas Island Fish Limited was held in Tarawa, Kiribati. The Minister of Labor of Kiribati, Taabeta Amuera, and the Ambassador of the Chinese Embassy in Kiribati, Tang Songgen, attended the groundbreaking ceremony and delivered speeches, which marked the official start of the onshore construction of the OCEAN FAMILY Fishery Cooperation Project.

(Above) The scene of the groundbreaking ceremony of OCEAN FAMILY Tarawa Fishery Base

In September 2018, OCEAN FAMILY actively responded to the national initiative of promoting the construction of "One Belt, One Road" and strengthened cooperation with Kiribati, a Pacific Island country, signing a fisheries cooperation agreement with the Kiribati government and registering two joint venture companies, which set up a strategic framework and roadmap for comprehensive cooperation between the two sides. The total investment of the fishery cooperation project is CNY 1 billion, mainly constructing the largest integrated base of ultra-low temperature tuna processing, cold storage, logistics and breeding base in Kiribati in the South Pacific islands, and building 5 new large tuna purse seine vessels. This project is the largest investment project of Chinese private enterprises in Kiribati, and also the largest investment project of OCEAN FAMILY in overseas so far.

The construction of marine projects basically progressed smoothly according to the original plan, the Tarawa milk fish cage aquaculture project has been output, the first large tuna purse seine vessel will be delivered to Kiribati exclusive economic zone fishing operations in September this year, the second and third vessels are under construction. However, the land-based fishery base project has been seriously affected by the COVID-19 epidemic and the construction has been delayed.

Since the beginning of 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 has continued to spread, and many countries and regions have closed their borders and prohibited the entry of people, and until now the air routes to Kiribati are still closed. In order to guarantee the land-based fishery base project to start construction as soon as possible, the company has tried every possible way to overcome the difficulties and made efforts to do a good job of coordination between the Chinese and Kiribati governments through various ways. After continuous communication and negotiation, recently Zhoushan Municipal Government and relevant departments and Kiribati Cabinet meeting approved 23 base construction managers to enter and leave the country in batches on the refrigerated carrier from Zhoushan to Tarawa, and the first and second batches of 10 construction personnel arrived in Kiribati in July and August this year and worked normally after 14 days of quarantine, so that the land-based fishery construction project was successfully started.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, Taabeta Amuera, Minister of Labor of Kiribati, gave a speech to thank the project for providing local employment opportunities and wished the project a successful completion.

(Above) Speech by Taabeta Amuera, Minister of Labor of Kiribati

In his speech, Ambassador Tang Songgen of the Chinese Embassy in Kiribati said that on the road of great development of fisheries, Kiribati government, Zhejiang OCEAN FAMILY and Golden Ocean Fishery (Fiji) Company have moved forward side by side, bringing together the advantages of technology, capital, talents and management experience of each party, setting an example of win-win cooperation among the three parties. It is great to see many Chinese experts coming to Kiribati to share their valuable expertise in milk fish cage farming. The construction of the base will give more impetus to the development of Christmas Island Fisheries, improve its ability to achieve its business goals and contribute to the overall development of Kiribati.

(Above) Speech by Ambassador Tang Songen of the Chinese Embassy in Kiribati

This fishery cooperation project is a model of domestic foreign cooperation in offshore fishing. The project not only promotes international production capacity cooperation and establishes a long-term reliable comprehensive guarantee base for China's offshore fishing fleet in the South Pacific, but also promotes the further implementation of Kiribati's "KV20" national economic development strategic plan, boosts the development of local fisheries and aquatic processing industry, enhances infrastructure construction, increases local government's and solve the employment of local labor force. Simultaneously, it promotes the friendship between China and Kiribati and the relationship between the two countries, which is far-reaching.