is Expanding

Pago Tuna Enterprise is Expanding

PAGO PAGO is to see an ex pansion of tuna fishing and canning operations following the fvisit of a Van Camp Company 'official recently. The ice-making and fish-storing capacity will be greatly expanded with the arrival of the Japanese freezer mothership Saipan Maru, which will also be able to store all swordfish, sharks, and tuna previously wasted for lack of storage.

I The latter produce will now go to Japan, with the exception of the ■mall quantity used on the local market.

In the cannery, three modern packing “lines” are being estab lished to replace the present two out-dated lines. New canning equip ment is being installed, and the fish dock improved and extended. An additional fishing vessel, the Kaiko Maru No. 13, has arrived. She is somewhat larger than the others— -352 gross tons. She brought in 47 tons of fish as her first offering in June.

I Van Camps recently joined forces with the US Fish & Wildlife Service Pacific Ocean Fishery Investigation team to carry out further long-line tuna fishing surveys in Line Islands waters and results were “moder

ately successful.” The company is keen that other American fishing vessels —or any other vessels —supply tuna to the cannery on a tonnage basis ,and the Line Islands area is considered a potentially valuable and, so far, unworked fishing ground.