7 RI firms re-export Chinese shrimps: EU

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Almost one third of Indonesia's shrimp exports to Europe in 2003 and 2004 actually originated from China, whose shrimps were banned from the European market, an investigation by the European Commission's Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) found.

The result of the inquiry stated that seven Indonesian shrimp exporters had misused the use of the Certificate of Origin (COO) document to facilitate the re-exporting of the seafood.

The seven firms re-exported a total of some 12,000 Chinese shrimps to Europe in two years, the Ministry of Trade said. Some 20,849 tons and 21,685 tons of shrimps were exported in 2003 and 2004, respectively.

The ministry's director general for foreign trade Diah Maulida confirmed on Friday that the seven exporters had first imported the shrimps from China to be processed here before finally re- exporting them to Europe using COO documents declaring the seafood came from Indonesia.

"Out of 185 local shrimp exporters in the country, the OLAF team investigated seven firms that were later found to have misused COO documents," Diah said on Friday, without revealing the firms.

China's shrimps have been banned from entering the European market since 2001, after the EU declared that the Chinese seafood contained antibiotics.

The EU has been one of Indonesia's major shrimp markets, along with Japan and the United States.

Shrimp is the country's top maritime export commodity, with last year's value reaching $806,86 million, from 2003's $819,14 million.