Sharif said that there are a number of current issues that the world's marine sector is presently facing; the food resilience, the trading connectivity, the sustainable marine products trade, the environment friendly transport and the marine tourism.
"The mainstreaming of the marine and fishery issues play an instrumental role in Asia Pacific region, particularly in the sectors of the marine tourism, the development of the alternative energy, go-green transportation, the food resilience, and the sustainable marine products trade. We, Indonesia, are striving to include those issues in the APEC Leaders' statements, allowing it to be a stronger marine and fishery cooperation for all the APEC's state members," he stated.
To support the initiative, Indonesia has proposed one comprehensive plan of action for each APEC state member. "We have a plan of action covering three sectors; the strengthening of the food resilience, the ocean healthy; and the protection of the marine environment," the Minister explained.
Indonesia Proposing the Marine Monitoring Cooperation
Sharif continued, comparing to the other neighboring countries, Indonesia's geographic position has a competitive advantage, geo-economically, geo-politically and geo-strategically. Although that Indonesia is potentially and geographically advantageous, Indonesia is quite vulnerable to the marine and fishery and the border security violation. For this reason, it's wise for Indonesia to encourage other neighboring countries by common interest to accordingly enhance the marine monitoring and security cooperation. "APEC is potential to be a springboard of Asia Pacific marine and fishery resource management cooperation," affirmed Sharif.
Furthermore, Indonesia has initiated a bilateral cooperation on the Asia Pacific marine resource monitoring with People's Republic of China on October 2, 2013. The Indonesia - China cooperation encompasses the investment promotion of the commercial fishery, fish farming, and the fishery processing and marketing. Additionally, the cooperation also covers the IUU fishing eradication, the Port State Measures implementation and the fishery data and information exchange, particularly the exchange of the fishery product export-import data, fish docking data, boat registration and the deletion certificate.
The MoU also covers the technical collaboration development of the sustainable commercial fishery, the fishery biodiversity protection and other fishery capacity building collaboration.
The agreement possesses a strategic value to benefit both parties, particularly for Indonesia to ensure the regional marine security and resource stability as well as maintaining the Asia Pacific marine security stability. "The MMAF proposed a development of Marine Research and Observation Center in Perancak, Bali, set to be the APEC Marine and Fishery Center," concluded the Minister.
For more information, please contact:
Anang Noegroho
Head of Statistic and Data Center
The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries
+6221-3519070
Editor: PR Wire
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
