Indonesia to halt shrimp imports

 

 

The Indonesian government plans to stop its policy of shrimp imports which has been hurting shrimp producers, according to the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DKP) minister Fadel Muhammad earlier this week.

 

Muhammad says that local and national businessmen had previously requested the government not to allow shrimp imports to protect domestic production.

 

With regard to the plan he called on shrimp farmers to continue to increase production and quality of shrimps.

 

The minister says the government was just intensifying cultivation of vannamei shrimps, noting that the effort was proven successful particularly in Lampung with the quality of production better than that of the imported shrimps.

 

So far Indonesia has imported the vannamei shrimps from the US but the ministry of fisheries and marine resources has conducted a research and discovered that the shrimp species could be cultivated in the country.

 

Shrimps need to be further developed as their export demand is high in addition to meeting domestic needs.

 

Also, DKP has set itself a target for raising Indonesia's shrimp production by 10.42 percent per annum.

 

According to DKP, improved irrigation and pond facility improvements were made using stimulus fund worth Rp430 billion. The improvements covered 53,000 hectares of shrimp ponds in 56 districts of the 16 provinces.

 

In an effort to prevent the spread of the disease, the government is building a fish and environment disease research center in Serang regency, Banten province, which is scheduled to be completed in January 2010.

 

In the 2010-14 period, production is seen to increase by 353 percent from 5.26 million tonnes to 16.89 million tonnes.