Source: Antara News

Indonesia is making preparations to diversify the export destinations of its fishery exports in anticipation of the impact of the United States financial crisis, a Maritime and Fisheries Ministry (DKP) official said.

”The US financial crisis will affect our fisheries products. Our fishery exports to the U.S. account for 50 percent of our overall fishery exports,” Saut P Hutagalung, director for overseas marketing affairs of DKP, said here on Monday.

He said he could not yet predict to what extent the US financial turmoil would impact on Indonesia’s fishery exports.

”The extent of the impact will only be known in the coming two or three months when new contracts are concluded,” he said.

He said that a contract could not be made for the long term because fishery products could not last long, unlike oil and gas products that could be stored for a long time.

Saut Hutagalung said the government and businesses should remain committed to maintaining and improving the image of Indonesia’s fishery products to make them competitive in the world market.

”The United States, European Union and Japan are our main markets so that we should continue to provide them with good services. It is actually not easy to divert our exports,” he added.

He, however, admitted that diversification of export destinations could not be avoided in an effort to maintain the value of Indonesia’s fishery exports.

It was said earlier that DKP had begun to explore markets in the Middle East and East Europe.

He said the government would do its best to enable each Indonesian exporter or fish processing business to obtain an export approval number from Europe.

This was important for Indonesia’s fishery products to enter the European market, he said.

”We have to fight for an export approval for fish processing businesses which have not obtained one,” Hutagalung said.