State-run fishery company Perum Perindo has built cold storage units in a number of regions across the country.
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Ship crewmembers unload fish from the KM. Sinar Arindo 66 at the Nizam Zachman Ocean Fisheries Port, North Jakarta, on Friday (19/1). The government has vowed to help encourage fishermen to switch from using cantrang (seine nets) to using environmentally friendly catching equipment as part of an effort to ensure the sustainability of marine resources for fishermen in the future.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS – State-run fishery company Perum Perindo has built cold storage units in a number of regions across the country, allowing the government to increase their purchase of fish from fishing communities.
Perum Perindo targets to operate the cold storage and fish processing units sometime this year.
The company’s general manager of fleet and operations strategic business unit, Agung Pamujo, said cold storage units that were already completed and could start operation this year were the ones in Belawan, North Sumatra; Brondong, East Java; and Pemangkat, West Kalimantan. The cold storage units were built with a budget of Rp 300 billion (US$22.5 million) from state equity participation, among other funding sources.
The cold storage in Pemangkat will be used to help the government increase its fish purchase from fishing communities in Natuna waters. This is in line with the government’s plan of moving fishermen using big ships and cantrang (seine nets) in Java’s northern coasts to the Natuna, Arafura and Bitung seas.
“We will still work together with fishermen who use gill nets and purse seines in Arafura and Natuna waters,” Agung said in Jakarta over the weekend.
Last year, Perum Perindo worked together with state-owned construction company PT Amarta Karya in building cold storages with a capacity of 2,750 tons on Muara Baru Harbor in Jakarta. Earlier, a 50-ton cold storage unit had already been built under the same cooperation in Brondong in 2015. The cold storage units store fish caught by fishermen in Merauke in Papua, among other places.
“The cold storage is also in anticipation of companies that have been in the fishing and fish transport market since 2014,” Agung said.
Perum Perindo president director Risyanto Suanda said the company targeted a revenue of Rp 1.03 trillion this year. The plan to achieve this level of revenue is from activities comprising shrimp and grouper cultivation, fish capture and trade, fish processing and port services.
Not going out to sea
A number of cantrang-using fishermen in Java’s northern coasts have yet to return to sea. They are still processing the remeasurement of their boats and extending their fishing permits, which expired in December last year.
Tegal Fishermen Association secretary Riswanto said some local fishermen were still waiting to receive the circular on the extension of cantrang usage permits as the legal basis for the government’s issuance of extended fishery permits (SIPI) using cantrang. Without the SIPI, fishermen will not be able to obtain a seaworthiness certificate from the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry and a sailing permit from the harbormaster – two documents necessary to go to sea.
Indonesian Fisheries Product Processing and Marketing Association (AP5I) chair Budhi Wibowo said the cantrang usage extension circular would enable surimi factories that relied on raw ingredients obtained through cantrang fisheries to reoperate three weeks after fishermen went out to sea.
