"The planned investments comprise fishing operations and the building of fish-processing plants as under our current regulations, if they want to fish in our waters, they have to process the fish here," fisheries ministry spokesman Saut P Hutagalung said late last week.

He said that four of the companies had already obtained permits and commenced fishing, with their catches being processed in collaboration with domestic processing firms.

Saud said the companies would be permitted to use existing processing facilities prior to building their own plants.

The companies have selected Jambi in Sumatra, Jakarta in Java, Merauke in Papua and Ambon in Maluku as their processing bases.

Last year, the government issued a decree requiring foreign firms to establish fish-processing plants if they wanted to fish in Indonesian waters.

The rule was introduced in light of the fact that most of the fish caught by foreign vessels in the past ended up being processed abroad, with the state only receiving $48 per ton of fish caught.

Saut said that 15 local firms had also committed themselves to investing around Rp1.4 billion (Bt5.3 million).