Indonesia needs more fishing boats: Minister

Indonesia needs more fishing boats: Minister

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia needs at least 3,000 additional
fishing vessels to optimize the country's fishery activities,
Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah said.

Antara quoted Sjarifudin who was on a visit to Palu, Central
Sulawesi, as saying that additional fishing fleets were also
needed to improve the welfare of Indonesia's fishermen who
currently have among the lowest incomes in the country.

Sjarifudin said that without the additional vessels,
Indonesia's marine fishery resources could be hauled out of the
country by foreign fishing fleets without generating domestic
revenues.

Foreign fishing fleets, he said as reported on Saturday, have
lately been entering Indonesia's territorial waters, including
its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

The Association of Indonesian Fishing Companies (Gappindo)
earlier this year asked the government to consider allowing the
importation of used fishing vessels to boost the country's
fishery catch.

Gappindo members said they could not afford to buy vessels
manufactured by local companies, whose prices were six to seven
times higher than imports.

The government currently bans the importation of used fishing
vessels to protect the domestic fishing vessel manufacturer, the
state-owned PT IKI.

According to statistics, Indonesia has a potential fishery
catch of 6.7 million tons a year, but only 40 percent of the
resources in the territorial waters and 25 percent of that in the
EEZ has been utilized so far.

Sjarifudin said last week that fishing companies should be
able to select the types of vessels they need.

"If they need ships measuring 30 to 40 gross tons, they should
make orders to local ship docks," he said.

Local manufacturers, he said, could now produce wood and steel
vessels of up to 40 gross tons.

Sjarifudin said that by using local products, fishing
companies would be helping the domestic industry because a number
of small-scale companies were currently producing small, wooden
fishing boats.

By operating more locally-made vessels, especially those owned
by small-scale fishermen, foreign fleets will consequently have
less leeway to operate, Sjarifudin added. (pwn)