RD Corp. to expand tuna cannery business
Posted on December 21st, 2009
The RD Corporation, a Filipino owned company, is planning to expand its investment in the tuna cannery business and is earmarking about $15 million for its prospect. This was disclosed by RD Group chairman Rodrigo Rivera, who said that they will be starting the new cannery by the first quarter of 2010 and will be based in General Santos City. The group has already existing 6 canneries in the city.
With the planned cannery plant, the company hopes to increase their output of 140 tons per day to 200 tons daily. What more, the new plant will also create about 1,200 to 1,500 new jobs in the area. According to Rivera, tuna cannery is a very labor intensive business.
The company has 11,000 employees at present, of which 7,000 are in General City. Rivera said that 90% of their workforce is women.
Aside from the Philippine operations, RD Corp also has cannery plants in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The Indonesia plant produces 80 metric tons, while the Papua New Guinea plant produces 200 metric tons.
In the Philippines, they are the biggest exporter of canned tuna, with about 380 million metric tons of exports per year. RD Corp. exports 14 containers every day, and one container costs $40,000, said Rivera. Their exports comprised 30% of their canned tuna production. Aside from exporting canned tunas, they also sell scrap of fish overseas.
The RD Group is composed of four fishing companies. These are RD Fishing Industry Inc., RD Tuna Ventures Inc., South Sea Fishing Ventures Philippines Inc. and Asia Pacific Allied Fishing Ventures Corp.
