Govt prepares incentives for fishermen after fuel hike
Tb. Arie Rukmantara, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries announced on Friday a set of planned policies to support fishermen in facing the steep increase in the price of diesel fuel for their fishing boats.
Earlier, various press reports said that many fishermen had quit or reduced their fishing activities because they could no longer afford to buy diesel fuel, the retail price of which has soared to Rp 6,000 (60 U.S. cents) per liter from Rp 4,300 following the recent increases in fuel prices.
Fuel costs made up 60 percent of fishermen's operational costs.
Minister Freddy Numberi said that to cope with the problems faced by fishermen and the fishing industry, his office planned a number of incentives to be officially issued on Nov. 1.
The minister said his ministry would offer incentives for fishing firms that operated 60 gross ton (GT) boats by abolishing fishing fees, which would reduce the government's non-tax income by about Rp 5.8 billion per year.
He would also issue more licenses for companies to increase the areas in which they are permitted to fish.
"Currently a fishing company is only allowed to have one fishing ground, but soon they can have two. They will also be allowed to add more harbors (from which they are allowed to operate out of) from the present three harbors to a maximum of five," he said at a media gathering.
The ministry also planned to ban the importation of shrimp to help protect local shrimp farmers and increase production to 300,000 tons this year, Freddy said.
"Presently, national production is 200,000 tons. Hopefully, by banning shrimp imports, we will achieve the target by the end of this year," he said.
Freddy added that other planned policies to help fishermen and fish farmers included the setting up of gas filling stations in areas close to fishing villages.
"From October this year to October next year, state oil and gas firm Pertamina has set a quota of 2.6 million kiloliters of diesel fuel for fishermen," he said.
"To ensure its availability for fishermen across the country, we will set up consumer pools in regions that have large fishermen populations," he said, without elaborating on the budget and the number of pool stations planned.
He said that of the 2.6 million kiloliters, 900,000 kiloliters would be distributed to boats with capacities under 30 GT; 1.2 million for boats above 30 GT and another 500,000 kiloliters for fish farmers.
Freddy further said that to increase the competitiveness of the Indonesian fishing sector, the ministry had proposed to the Ministry of Finance's Directorate General of Taxation that the 10 percent value-added tax on fishery products be waived.
"The proposal is still being discussed with the Ministry of Finance," he said, adding that the policy, if realized, would only be applied for one year.