Marine Sector Major Concern At OPEC 2013

Bali, Oct 8, (ANTARA) - Indonesia, as the APEC 2013 chairmanship-holding country, promotes the mainstreaming of the marine and fisheries cooperation at the APEC forum, according to Marine Affairs and Fisheries Minister Sharif C. Sutardjo. Sharif said there are several issues that the world`s marine sector is facing - food resilience, trading connectivity, sustainable marine products trade, environmentally friendly transport system, and marine tourism. "The mainstreaming of marine and fisheries issues plays an instrumental role in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the marine tourism sector, alternative energy development, go-green transportation, food resilience, and sustainable marine products trade. We, Indonesia, are striving to include those issues in the APEC Leaders` statements, enabling stronger marine and fisheries cooperation for all the APEC state members," he stated. Sharif noted that to support the initiative, Indonesia has proposed a comprehensive plan of action for each APEC state member. "We have a plan of action covering three sectors, namely the strengthening of food resilience, the ocean healthy, and the protection of the marine environment," the minister explained. He added that compared to the other neighbouring countries, Indonesia has a competitive advantage - geo-economically, geo-politically, and geo-strategically. Although Indonesia has a strategic location, the country is quite vulnerable to the marine and fisheries sector and violation of the border security. For this reason, it`s wise for Indonesia to encourage other neighbouring countries with common interests to accordingly enhance the marine monitoring and security cooperation. "APEC has the potential to be a springboard for Asia-Pacific marine and fisheries resource management cooperation," affirmed Sharif. Furthermore, Indonesia has initiated 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 fisheries, fish farming, and the fisheries 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 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 regional marine security and resource stability as well as maintain the Asia-Pacific marine security stability.