Tuna Capital of the Philippines

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (26 April 2014) – GenSan fishport teems with tuna as City Mayor Ronnel Rivera declares that General Santos City is still the Tuna Capital of the Philippines. This is in reaction to a World Wildlife Foundation report that Occidental Mindoro is the Philippines’ emerging tuna capital because of the region’s significant increase in tuna catch for the past years. In 2011 and 2012, the Bureau of
Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and WWF reported that Occidental Mindoro has an average of 600,000 kilos of tuna delivered throughout the Philippines and outside the country. Mayor Rivera quickly debunked
the assertions saying, “there are a lot of factors to be considered before a place can be considered as the tuna capital. This would include the number of canneries and fishing industries present and the rate of tuna export every year.” Six out of seven canneries in the Philippines are situated in GenSan. The fishing company of RD Group of Companies alone has an annual catch of about 10,000,000 kilos which is roughly about 11,000 tons. (Photo courtesy of COCOY SEXCION for GENSAN CPIO)