Fishcor income nears half a billion

…as Group splashes N$120 million to boost its fleet

By Hilary Mare

THE National Fishing Corporation of Namibia Limited (Fishcor) and it’s subsidiaries has grown its income by 21% from N$393 657 919 in 2017 to N$477 696 841 in 2018 with assets also growing by 68% to reach N$730 696 454, the Group’s financial results for the year ended 30 September 2018 reveal.

The increase is attributed to the good prices achieved for Seaflower Whitefish Corporation hake sales to South Africa and Europe, and Seacope Freezer Fishing’s hake sales to Europe as well as other income in the operating entities within the Group.

However, the Group’s reported profit after taxation was N$64 769 400 compared to N$67 925 119 in 2017. In this view, the Group attributed the 4.7% decline in profit to increased costs in fuel as well as increases in salaries, wages and employee costs.

Chairperson of Fishcor’s Board of Directors, James Hatuikulipi commented: “The implementation of our strategic plan is forging ahead, with good progress made in areas such as continuously upgrading our infrastructure and machinery, enhancing capacity, reviewing and drafting an institutional policy framework and further improving our production efficiency.”

During the period, the Group continued to build on strides of the 2017 financial year in terms of investing in strategic assets for the Group’s core business. In essence, the Group acquired two more wet hake trawlers, namely MFV Seaflower and MFV Ohamba at a cost of approximately N$120 million.

“This major investment was made to ensure that our fleet is capable of supporting our efforts to fully utilise our allocated quotas and increase production to absorb our fixed costs structure in Seaflower Whitefish Corporation.

“As reported in the previous financial year, pursuant of the cooperation agreement between Fishcor and the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, one of the governmental objectives mandated to Fishcor is the land based processing facility for horse mackerel. The Board is delighted to report that construction of the N$530 million facility has been completed. The factory is the largest on-shore pelagic processing facility in sub-Saharan Africa, creating approximately 700 new job opportunities and enabling the processing of 600 metric tons of fish a day. Additionally, the factory complex will house state of the art cannery and fish meal plant,” Hatuikulipi added.

Group Chief Executive Officer, Mike Nghipunya also note that the Group was entering the third year of its strategic plan and the tracking and review of the plan show an average annual implementation rate of 70%.

“For the year ahead, we plan to continue to build on our efforts to improve operational efficiency by investing in machinery. This will include the upgrade of our hake processing facility in Luderitz, which will be complemented by the purchasing of two Baarder filleting machines and a Grader machine for sorting fish. To ensure that the product quality we are known for is not compromised, additional investments will be made in the Sabroe Compressor to strengthen our refrigeration and freezing capacity,” Nghipunya said.