October 11, 2011

Indonesia, Norway to collaborate to promote fishery production

Indonesia will be partnering with the Norwegian government to promote fishery output that includes fish, shrimp and seaweed, to twice of the current amount by 2015.

The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry has said it would partner with Norway, the second-biggest fish producer globally, to achieve a production target of some 22.39 million tonnes by 2015.

This is a substantial leap from the 2012 target of achieving 14.87 million tonnes of production. For this year, the ministry expects production to touch 12.3 million tonnes, up from last year's 11.2 million tonnes. Minister Fadel Muhammad lauded Norway's advanced technology and said the country was chosen to indicate how serious Indonesia is on developing aquaculture technology. This urgency became more pronounced ever since he transformed the country's fishery industry from just plain fishing to aquaculture in October 2009.

"Aquaculture is the most realistic and viable way to have sustainable fish production in the future," Fadel noted on Tuesday (Oct 11) at a seminar which was participated by Norwegian fish farms, research institutions and government representatives and during which new aquaculture technology was also exhibited. Meanwhile, Indonesia's Ambassador to Norway Esti Andayani said the country would gain immensely from the tie-up as it need not spend substantial sums of money to acquire the new technology.