Soltai Expands Capacity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JANUARY 8, 2007

Tri Marine Increases Production from Solomons Islands Tuna Plant

Noro, Solomon Islands –The Honorable Manasseh Sogavare Prime Minister of Solomon Islands officially reopened the tuna processing plant at Noro, Solomon Islands on Monday, January 8, 2007. The plant is owned by Soltai Fishing and Processing Limited.

Tri Marine International’s managing director Joe Hamby attended the ceremony and assisted Prime Minister Sogavare along with Mr. Fred Seda, Chairman of Soltai, in cutting the ribbon to symbolize the reopening of the plant.

General manager of Soltai Mr. Milton Sibisopere gave a tour of the expanded and newly renovated plant which was shown to be busy making double cleaned yellowfin loins and catering size canned tuna for the EU market plus Soltai’s own label Solomon Blue in 430 gram and 100 gram sizes for the domestic market.

The majority of the raw material for the plant is supplied by National Fisheries Developments, a Solomon fishing company owned by Tri Marine. NFD owns and operates three Solomon flag purse seiners.

The Soltai-NFD-Tri Marine partnership represents the only fully integrated, locally owned, staffed and managed tuna fishing and processing operations in the Western and Central Pacific.

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Background on Tri-Marine
Tri-Marine is a tuna supply company with focus on supply of tuna and tuna products to the leading brands of tuna. It has offices in 14 countries and processing activities in plants located strategically around the world. Its tuna purse seiners operate in the Western Pacific and the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Tri-Marine was formed in Singapore in 1972. Since then the company has grown to be one of the largest tuna supply companies in the world. Tri-Marine is privately owned.

Contact
Joe Hamby
jhamby@TriMarinegroup.com