Audit underway to review Sino-Van’s future
June 9, 2026 11:19 pm | Posted in Business News | Share now TwitterFacebook
By Anita Roberts.
The Vanuatu Government is undertaking an audit to assess Sino-Van’s situation and whether it can continue operating sustainably in the long term.
This was confirmed by the Chairman of the Sino-Van Board, Timothy Tumukon. He said the company has not complied with the agreement signed with the government, which requires it to process tuna locally for export and canning.
Mr. Tumukon said the agreement required the company to operate vessels that would offload their tuna catches locally for processing and export, but this has not been done.
“The company is not offloading fishes here (in Vanuatu),” he said.
“The government is conducting the audit to decide whether it should continue operating or close it down,” he said.
The Chairman of the Sino-Van Board also said the company has not been paying dividends to the government.
“It has not paid any dividends during my three-year term. The government expects its state-owned enterprises to pay dividends,” he said.
Launched in 2019, Sino-Van is one of the many enterprises in which the government owns minority shares. The government holds 49% of the shares, while the remaining51% is owned by the China National Fisheries Cooperation (CNFC), a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
The joint venture company was established to revive Vanuatu’s fishing industry, help the country benefit from its fish resources, and ensure that fishing nations operating in Vanuatu’s waters contributed to the local economy.
As part of its contribution to the joint venture, the government provided land for the project and fish processing plant at Salili. In 2019, the government approved moving the Vanuatu Fisheries Department’s breeding facilities from Paray Bay to Tagabe to make way for Sino-Van pontoons for offloading fish.
While the government has fulfilled its commitments, the company’s processing plant at Salili has not yet met key targets, including canned tuna production and the export of fish as “products of Vanuatu”.
