The ministry's Head of the Marine and Fisheries Product Quality Control and Supervision Agency, Ishartini, said on Saturday that Indonesia has established a bilateral agreement on equivalency of fishery product quality assurance systems, known as a mutual recognition arrangement (MRA).
According to her, this agreement served as the basis for negotiations, leading to Chinese authorities approving the proposed new approval numbers for the UPIs.
“This marks a fresh boost for Indonesia’s fisheries sector and opens opportunities to diversify export products, particularly ahead of the 2026 Chinese New Year,” Ishartini said in a statement.
She explained that to obtain the approval numbers, the KKP Quality Agency, together with the GACC, carried out a series of technical and administrative processes under the MRA framework.
These processes include reciprocal registration, joint pre-border inspections, joint corrective action consultations, and document submissions through the GACC system, with the KKP Quality Agency acting as the competent authority.
She added that Indonesia currently exports 1,080 types of fishery commodities to China.
Throughout 2025, export volume reached 491,528 tons, valued at US$1.04 billion, or approximately Rp17.46 trillion.
Ishartini further detailed that the ten main export commodities include frozen squid, Eucheuma cottonii seaweed, Gracilaria seaweed, frozen ribbon fish, and Eucheuma cottonii (processed).
These are followed by dried Eucheuma cottonii seaweed, dried Gracilaria seaweed, Eucheuma spinosum, frozen leather jacket fish, and frozen croaker fish.
She also urged business actors and stakeholders that have secured export access to remain committed and consistent in applying sanitation, hygiene, and food safety standards.
Earlier, KKP Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono emphasized that quality assurance at every stage of the upstream-to-downstream production chain is crucial to maintaining product quality and strengthening the competitiveness of Indonesia’s fisheries industry in the free-market era.
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Translator: Shofi Ayudiana, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: M Razi Rahman
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