The Production Target Of 2 Million Tons Of Shrimp In 2024 Is Hampered By Credit

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Acting Deputy for Maritime Resources Coordination at the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Mochammad Firman Hidayat, said that low credit is one of the challenges in achieving the production target of two million tons of shrimp and an increase in shrimp exports by 250 percent in 2024.

Based on data from the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (KKP) and the Association of Indonesian Village Governments (Apdesi), the realization of people's business loans (KUR) in the fisheries sector in 2021 is only IDR 8.05 trillion with 231,329 debtors.

This amount is much lower than the realization of agricultural KUR which reached IDR 69.2 trillion with 2.12 million debtors.

"In fact, we have very large maritime potential, no less than agriculture, but the amount of financing given to fisheries is very small. Without financing, achieving targets is difficult to do," said Firman as quoted by Antara, Wednesday, October 26.

According to him, the low level of fishery credit may be due to fisheries being considered to have a high risk.

However, Firman believes, with its lucrative potential going forward, fishery funding will be able to grow.

"Seeing its potential going forward, it is also because the issue of ocean (sea) itself is also growing and this is a topic globally, I think banks have also begun to be more open to being able to help provide encouragement from the financing side to the fisheries sector," he said.

Until 2021, he continued, the realization of shrimp exports had only reached 2.2 billion US dollars. The target is that by 2024, shrimp exports could reach 4.3 billion US dollars.

"So we have to double export in less than two years, from 2.2 billion US dollars to 4.3 billion US dollars. The production also targets two million tons, while 2021 is only less than one million tons, only 881,000 tons. This means that within two years it must be able to double production as well," he said.

Firman added that the government will also collaborate with banks so that the target of increasing shrimp production and exports can be achieved.

Moreover, this target is also included in the national development priorities.