Many RI farm exports not up to standard: Rahadi

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Industry and Trade Rahardi Ramelan acknowledged on Tuesday that many Indonesian farm products are still being rejected by importing countries mostly due their low quality.

Speaking at a seminar on the promotion of agricultural products, the minister said that the government had conducted bilateral talks with such importers but the results were not so encouraging because not much effort was made by local producers to improve the quality of their farm products.

According to Rahardi, a bilateral approach based on mutual agreement should be more effective than other approaches in dealing with non-tariff barriers as long as related parties like producers and traders were willing to follow up recommendations such as the need to improve quality standards.

"We have used mutual recognition agreements in dealing with several main export destinations, including Australia and the United States," he said when addressing a seminar on encouraging exports of agricultural commodities. "But so far many of our exports of agricultural products have been rejected by importing countries."

Rahardi said that Indonesia's exports of agricultural products reached US$3.04 billion during the January-October period of 1998, up 15.41 percent from $2.63 billion in the same period of 1997.

Rahardi said Indonesia's exports of canned mushrooms, fresh and frozen shrimps and other fishery-related products have often been rejected by the United States.

"Many of our agricultural products were also barred from entering the Australian market because they could not meet Australian standards," he said.

Director General of International Trade Djoko Moeljono said Australia rejected 0.85 percent of Indonesia's exports of processed and unprocessed food in 1997.

Of the 0.85 percent, he said, "at least 66 percent of our food exports have been rejected by Australia due to its health requirements. Sixteen percent were rejected due to high pesticide content, 12 percent due to the preservative content and 6 percent because they exceeded the allowed microbiological levels".

He added that tons of Indonesian cocoa were also being slapped with "automatic detention" or price cuts by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because the cocoa did not meet U.S. standards of properly-dried cocoa.

Rahardi said the rejection showed that Indonesian exporters did not understand the export regulations in destination countries.

Rahardi said that the government would continue its agreements with importer countries in order to increase exports of agricultural products. (gis)