Govt prepares incentives for fishermen after fuel hike

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.