Recently, the Indonesian government has been revising Article 11 in the regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture, "advice regarding the import of horticultural products", in order to promote a self-sufficient garlic plan. It will be implemented on 1 July of this year. This act will affect the garlic producers in Zaozhuang, who export their produce to Indonesia.
This regulation mainly touches upon two areas: firstly, it brings back the garlic import quota. New regulations require that an importer of garlic has to request a quota from the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture. They can only produce garlic based on this quota. Secondly, it raises the access threshold. Apart from implementing a quota, the exporting areas have to be approved by the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), and the exported garlic has to be inspected by the Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS, a third party inspection organization).
