With the fishing restrictions imposed by the government, Indonesia is unlikely be able to fully benefit from the tariff reduction provided by the United States under its generalized system of preference (GSP), businessmen said.
The tariff dropped down to zero percent for 34 fisheries products from Indonesia and was signed on June 29 by US President Barack Obama. It has been in effect since July 29. It will expire in Dec. 31, 2017. Among the fisheries products were lobster, blue swimmer crab, processed snail, frozen sharks, frozen sardines and frozen swordfish.
The government has not only imposed a moratorium on the issuance of new licenses for fishing vessels bigger than 30 gross tons (GT), but also ban the use of trawls and small-diameter purse seine nets.
Since the moratorium policy, as of June, at least 1,132 vessels from 187 companies are under evaluation, according to the data from the task force for the prevention and eradication of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUUF). After October, the ministry would issue licenses for the vessels passing the evaluation.
Meanwhile, Indonesian Blue Swimming Crab Association (APRI) executive director Hawis Madduppa said that the new GSP facilities were not really good news for Indonesia’s blue swimming crabs because there was an oversupply in the US market at present.
He said that APRI members might be able to benefit from the zero tariff after September, this year, when the market glut was expected to ease.
“Maybe after September this year. For now, we won’t buy much from fishermen,” Hawis said.
Blue swimming crab amounted to almost 60 percent of the US market, Hawis said. Blue swimmier crab in non-air tight container (ATC) imports previously had 5 percent tariffs before GSP. According to him, Indonesia supplies about 60 percent of US blue swimming crab needs. – See more at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/08/04/ri-unable-benefit-us-tariff-cut-due-fishing-restrictions.html#sthash.kXSv1s7h.dpuf
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