"The free trade with China has not been carefully calculated beforehand."Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian is suffering losses in its ACFTA (Asean-China Free Trade Agreement)-based fishery trade because the broad free trade accord was concluded without first making careful calculations, an NGO concerned with maritime and fisheries affairs said.
"The free trade with China has not been carefully calculated beforehand. In the context of fishery, this agreement has very much disadvantaged fishermen and fishery businessmen in Indonesia due to the influx of imported fish," said Abdul Halim, coordinator of the People`s Coalition for Fisheries Justice (Kiara), in a statement to ANTARA News here on Tuesday.
Halim said the volume of fish imports nation-wide had reached 3.0 million tons of which 2.0 million tons entered the Indonesian markets through Jakarta, as data of the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry indicated.
What is ridiculous, he said, as much as 60 percent of the imported fish had actually been within the Indonesian territorial waters.
Halim viewed the government, in this case the Trade Ministry, has not taken a good coordinating measure with other relevant ministries, notably with the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry.
Asean-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) was signed in 2004 but only fully implemented on January 1, 2010.
Trade Ministry data show that Indonesia export to China was valued at 15.7 billion US dollars last year compared to 11.5 billion US dollars n 2009. Imports from China in 2010 was 20.4 billion US dollars, rose 31 percent from 14 billion US dollars in 2009.
(Uu.KR-VFT/HAJM/S012)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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