Indonesia has proposed six export commodity quality fish to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a London-based independent nonprofit organization that sets the standards for sustainable fishing, in an effort to make local fish more competitive in the global market.
The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry proposed cakalang, bigeye tuna, yellow-fin tuna, spotted crab, red snapper and grouper to undergo MSC's certification.
The ministry's fish processing and marketing director general ,Saut P. Hutagalung, said that obtaining certification was important since tuna and cakalang contributed to around 18 percent of the country's total fish exports throughout 2013 worth US$4.2 billion.
"The certification is also improvement for our own sustainable fishing because importers frequently ask about MSC certification to make sure that the catch is environmentally friendly," Saut said on Tuesday on the sidelines of the World Fisheries Conference 2014 in Bali as quoted by Antara state news agency.
He said that Indonesia was not home to any local fishing firms that had pocketed MSC certificates.
However, with the plan, five domestic companies were ready to undergo the tight certification process.
He expected that the firms would obtain the certificates within the next one to two years.
