Indonesia hopes to be world's biggest fish producer in 2015
Indonesian Minister for Maritime and Fisheries Fadel Muhammad said Thursday the country has a chance to be the world's largest fish producer in 2015 by cultivating superior fishes, detikcom online news reported.
"We could be the biggest fish producer in the world, beating Peru and Chile," he said at a regional economy seminar here.
"To achieve the goal, we have to cultivate Indonesia's superior fishes like tilapia fish, milkfish and freshwater cat fish, among others. We will also increase production of seaweed by 300 percent," Fadel said.
He said that banking sector should support fisheries business units to develop fish nursery, fish meal and researching institutions, among others.
All these years, he said, fish cultivation in the country has been hampered by problem related to food meal that is still imported. 60 percent of fish selling price is to cope with fish meal.
Responding to the fact, Fadel said that he had explored the development of alternative fish meal in coordination with the Bogor Agriculture Institute in West Java province.
"Fish meal price could be reduced to 2,000 rupiah (20 U.S. cents) from 200,000 rupiah (20 dollars) per kilogram," he said.
He also said that he had asked Bank Indonesia, the central bank, to order banking sector to give more attention to the fisheries sector by providing more credit.