Japan lowers fish imports fish from RI

JAKARTA (JP): Japan imported less fishery products from Indonesia in the last several months due to the country's economic downturn, Untung Wahyono, the director general of fisheries at the Ministry of Agriculture said on Thursday.

But he was confident that the drop in Japanese exports would not affect the country's fishery export target for this year.

Untung said the decline in the demand from Japan, the main buyer of Indonesian fish and other fishery products, could be offset from an increase in the demand from European countries and the United States.

"Many of our exporters have diversified their markets into the United States and European countries, such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom," he said at a business forum on Indonesian fishery export prospects.

Untung said the European market was very promising especially for Indonesian tuna and shrimp products.

Executive Director of the Indonesian Fisheries Federation (Gappindo) Bambang Suboko said the demand and prices of Indonesian fishery products in Japan and other Asian countries, such as South Korea and Singapore, had improved in the past three months.

Untung said that foreign exchange earnings from fishery exports were expected to exceed the initial target of US$2.04 billion this year, partly due to the rise in prices and demand for shrimp, tuna and skipjack on the world market.

"With the growing demand from western countries and the expected improvement in demand from Japan and other Asian countries in the coming months, I expect that our fishery exports will be worth over $2 billion this year," he said.

The government earlier predicted that Indonesian exports would increase by 7.3 percent to $2.04 billion this year from $1.9 billion last year.

Untung said the country's exports of fishery products were expected to reach $10 billion in 2003. About $6.78 billion of which will come from shrimp, $2.64 billion of which will come from fish catching and the remaining $58 million from other fishery products, such as seaweed and pearl.

"To reach the target, we have to produce 6.06 million tons of fishery products. About 4.95 million of which will come from catching activities and 1.1 million tons from aquaculture."

At present Indonesia produces about three tons of fishery products annually.

Untung added that Indonesia had a potential fishery catch of 6.18 million tons a year and there were plenty of opportunities for Indonesian fishing companies to exploit the supply of fish and fishery-related products.

But Indonesia is only able to tap 56 percent of its marine resources due to a lack of sound fishing technology and modern fishing equipment.

Untung said the development of the fishery sector would be focusing over the next few years on developing fish farming and coastal shrimp ponds and exploiting resources in eastern Indonesian waters and outside of the country's 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, which has an abundant supply of fishing resources but few firms.

"The government plans to develop 212,000 hectares of coastal shrimp ponds throughout Indonesia within the next five years," he said.

"It is also creating a more conducive environment for the fishery business by conducting several deregulations, and an easing of licensing procedures for catching activities." (gis)