Minister wants to raise import duty on shrimp

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Rokhmin Dahuri has requested the imposition of a 40 percent import tariff on shrimp following widespread imports of popular seafood, because domestic shrimp farmers cannot compete with the lower-priced imports.

"If the Ministry of Industry and Trade cannot ban imports of shrimp, then they should just apply a 40 percent import duty," Rokhmin said, after presenting the ministry's plans to develop the marine and fisheries sector to the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday.

He said that the massive import, which started late last year, had endangered the livelihood of domestic shrimpers, who potentially could sell a million tons of shrimp per year locally if the price was right.

"Our shrimp farmer's potential is 30 times greater than Thailand's. It will become very dangerous if these imports continue," Rokhmin was quoted as saying by Antara.

He added that it would be odd if the Ministry of Industry and Trade turned down the request given the huge potential here.

Rokhmin said that his ministry had sent the request about the import duty proposal to the Ministry of Industry and Trade in January and plans to send a similar proposal to the Ministry of Finance.

Deputy of the Indonesian Fisheries Industry Association (Gappindo) Johanes Kitono agreed that Indonesia did not need to import shrimp since local production could meet the domestic demand and eventually be able to export the product.

So far this year, he said, the country's production of shrimp had reached 260,000 tons with 30,000 tons being exported.

"But the rampant import of shrimp has created problems for domestic farmers since imports are now dominating the (local) market," said Johanes.

Imports of shrimp are mainly from countries affected by the United States' anti-dumping policy, which effectively bans it from the U.S. market.

Those countries include China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and India.

Johanes expressed his concern that the imported shrimp would become a kind of "shrimp laundering" where the imported shrimp would be remarketed to the U.S. market since Indonesia was not affected by the anti-dumping policy.

He explained that Gappindo would prefer a ban on imports of shrimp because the imposition of a 40 percent import duty would likely not stop the imports as long as the U.S. maintained the high import duty for those exporting countries.