VOI News 16:00 WIB, GMT+7, 29.01.2012

 

Manado, North Sulawesi - Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed not to arrest fishermen using boats weighing below 10 gross tons (GT), Indonesian minister of fisheries and marine resources Sharif Cicip Sutardjo said. Indonesia and Malaysia have signed a bilateral agreement on not arresting fishermen using boats below 10 GT,  he said at the dedication of the building of the Secretariat of Regional Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fishery and Food Security (CTI-CFF) in Manado, North Sulawesi, on Saturday. He said the agreement was effective for fishermen from both countries. He hoped with the agreement Indonesian fishermen could collect more catch as they now need not be worried about the possibility of being put in jail by Malaysian authorities for trespassing territorial borders. Sutardjo however said it was impossible to improve the welfare of fishermen only through catch. He said there must be industrialization. He hoped the industrialization could soon be realized as an integrated concept to provide enough supplies to meet domestic and foreign markets.The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are able to export more than Indonesia and therefore an integrated concept is needed to boost production capacity.  Sutardjo said Thailand could collect US$8 billion in foreign exchange from exports of fish while Vietnam almost US$5 billion but Indonesia only US$2.8 billion//////Ant

 

Jakarta - Indonesia is open to the importation of any goods by foreign firms as long as it is done in accordance with regulations in force in the country.  Foreign firms welcome and invite investment into Indonesia but they must abide by the law, including the law on the environment," Finance Minister Agus Marto Wardoyo said in Jakarta on Saturday. He made the statement during an inspection of 113 containers filled with hazardous and toxic (B3) waste materials from overseas that had been impounded at Tanjung Priok port. Agus, Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya and customs and excise officials took a look at the 113 containers filled with sleek scrap mixed with a chemical substance that had been shipped from Britain and the Netherlands. The minister said that Indonesia allowed the importation of scrap steel but the 113 containers were suspected to have been imported not based on regulations because they were still mixed with chemical substance, waste and soil.
He said the customs and excise office and the office of the environment minister would follow up the finds. The containers will be made evidence for a legal process that should be settled immediately because they were hazardous and toxic materials.////Ant