Al-Mukalla Factory for Fish Canning [Archives:1999/37/Business & Economy]

Mukalla is a beautiful city, on the coast, clean and quite. Besides its beauty, through its factories and industries, Al-Mukalla is also contributing to the economy of Yemen and welfare of its people. One of these factories is the Factory of Fish canning. The Yemen Times interviewed its General Manager Hussein Mohamed Al-Hamid to know more about this quite unfamiliar factory and focus on one of the contributions of Al-Mukalla to the whole country.
We started the interview by asking about how the whole project started. Mr. Hussein replied, “The factory is considered to be one of most successful public sectors in the field of fish canning. It was established in November, 1979 in cooperation with the (USSR). All the machinery used to be Russian and it used to produce 4.000.000 cans in a year. The raw material was supplied by the Russian boats working in the regional water at that time.


After the cooperation between us and the Russian fishing boats froze, we began to think of canning tuna. In 1988, we imported the machinery from Italy. In the course of time, when the machinery began to break down, the Ministry of Planning took the responsibility of renewing the factory. In 1993, Yemen signed a protocol with France to face-left the factory. The process of renewing was planned to take place in three different steps:
The first step was providing the factory with a calorific liquid and a unit for manufacturing cans. This was in October, 1994 and it cost 16.850.000 Francs. The factory now is able to produce 10.000.000 cans in a year. Besides supplying the factory, the unit also supplies the Shaqra Factory with the needed cans. The second step was inaugurated by President Ali Abdulla Saleh on November 30th, 1996. In this step the factory was provided with new machinery for canning tuna. We are in touch with the Ministry to carry out the third and the last step.


The factory products are considered to be of high quality and we won the gold medal for quality in our participation outside Yemen. In addition, our coasts are not polluted and are rich in the best kind of tuna.” Regarding the number of employees he said, “There are 70 and all of them are Yemenis.”
In regards to how tuna fish is being produced, he explained “First we weight it. Then we slice it and clean the slices to be ground and boiled in sea water for three hours. After this we take it to the cooling rooms and then to the canning section.”When asked about the exports he answered, “We export tuna to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries. We have also received orders from Egypt and Lebanon.”The production of the factory is reasonably acceptable, since as Mr. Hussein stated, “The factory produces 1.200.000 cans per month.”Finally, Mr. Hussein thanked the Yemen Times for giving importance to the Hadhramout region and to the canning project specifically, “I want to thank the Yemen Times for visiting Hadhramout and its focus on one of the most successful public sectors.”
Ridhwan Al-Saqqaf
Bureau Chief Editor
Aden

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