Govt urged to follow up fisheries deregulation
Govt urged to follow up fisheries deregulation
JAKARTA (JP): Academics and observers welcomed yesterday the
government's recent deregulation measures for the fisheries
sector but said that further steps were needed to facilitate both
the fishing and ship-building industries.
Chairman of the National Shipbuilding Association, Hermawan
Kartowisastro, said the deregulation must be followed up with
sound facilities, particularly in financing.
"Without the possibility of getting facilities from the
banking sector to construct or buy ships, the deregulation will
be useless," he said.
The government announced on Thursday reform measures allowing
local companies to buy used foreign ships and operate them in the
200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
The government said, however, that despite the deregulation,
locally-produced ships are still expected to make up most of the
country's fishing fleets.
The government calculated that at least 240 fishing vessels
are needed each year to achieve its target of increasing
fisheries production by 5 percent, or 160,000 tons a year.
Since national companies are unable to provide this total
amount, imports are now allowed.
The government stipulated that imports should be limited to
steel ships weighing more than 100 gross tons, while domestic
makes can be made from wood, fiberglass or steel.
So far, local banks have been reluctant to provide fishing
companies with loans because the business is considered a risky
one.
Hermawan said domestic shipbuilding firms are now capable of
building large ships of 4,000 dead weight tons and over.
Financial problems, however, have caused the industry to
receive no orders for merchant ships in the last 10 years, he
said.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Indonesia
currently has 233 shipyards, but only nine of them are capable of
manufacturing ships of over 4,000 dead weight tons.
State-owned shipbuilder PT PAL Indonesia is currently
constructing 12 long-liners weighing 300 gross tons each in
collaboration with the Spanish government.
The 12 vessels are part of the 31 ships which will be built
under the program funded by a US$200 million loan from the
Spanish government.
Shipyards
Bonar Pasaribu of the Bogor Agricultural University's School
of Fisheries said the government should give more serious
attention to domestic shipyards, especially those that produce
wooden ships weighing 30 gross tons to 40 gross tons.
"Indonesian wooden ships are of high quality and are capable
of sailing the exclusive economic zone. They are also cheaper
than imports," Antara reported him as saying.
"Therefore, it is a pity that such shipyards are still lacking
in capital and technical development," he added.
Other academics, however, were concerned about the impact of
the deregulation on Indonesia's fishing stocks.
Lachmuddin Sya'rani, a professor at the Diponegoro University
in Semarang, Central Java, said the deregulation might cause
over-fishing which, in turn, could endanger the country's fishing
stocks.
He pointed out that large fishing vessels generally use
equipment incapable of selecting fish stock, thus undersized fish
are often among the catch.
"This could endanger the sustainability of the stocks and the
preservation of species," he said.
Lachmuddin said that additional rulings are needed to ensure
that fishing by large vessels is kept far from the shore,
limiting them to deep-sea fishing.
Similarly, a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences, M. Hutomo, said a thorough study is needed to make sure
that fishing is kept at a sustainable level.
"Currently, studies on the quantity of fish in Indonesia are
very global, meaning that there are no guidelines to determine
which species have been overfished and which have not," he said.
(pwn)