The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries encourages Sambas Regency, West Kalimantan Province, to become a production center or producer of quality shrimp in Indonesia. "Seeing the potential and willingness to advance downstream cultivators and business actors in Sambas, as well as the support from the local government, banks and other stakeholders, I am optimistic that this will be achieved," said Director General of Strengthening the Competitiveness of Marine and Fishery Products (PSDKP) KKP Artati Widiarti in a press release in Jakarta, Wednesday. He stated that this would be done through the Competitiveness Cluster (KDS) activity program which was carried out, among others, in Sebubus Village, Paloh District Sambas Regency.
Artati, who has directly inspected the activities of peer groups in the village, expressed his hope that this area could be the starting point for a pilot model for developing peer groups in Sambas which will later be replicated to other locations. He saw that the KDS activities had been able to boost the production of the Paloh Jaya Fishermen's Cooperative, which is producing in the village, with the production of shrimp commodities from 12 tons/year to 132 tons/year in the last two years. With 130 members, the Paloh Jaya Fishermen's Cooperative manages a pond area of 60,000 square meters. Artati ensured that so far KKP has carried out a number of activities with cooperatives such as collaborating with BNI to facilitate access to KUR financing worth IDR 1 billion until April 2021. PDSPKP itself targets shrimp exports from Sambas to reach 9,000 tons / year in 2024 and generate a value of IDR 720 billion per year.
Furthermore, KKP also encourages business partnerships between cooperatives and companies providing fishery production facilities and shrimp processing as off takers. Not only that, KKP distributes assistance in the form of post-harvest facilities for sorting shrimp sizes. "We carry out activities starting from upstream and downstream for this KDS activity," explained Artati. Similarly, the Investment Director of the Directorate General of PDSPKP, Catur Sarwanto, confirmed that KKP will carry out further KDS activities in the Vannamei shrimp intensive pond, the Paloh Jaya Fisherman's Cooperative, Sambas Regency, West Kalimantan.
These activities include facilitation of business financing programs and post-harvest facilities, activation of 9 plots or 22,500 square meters of pond land and expansion of millenial shrimp to 12 tanks in the context of community empowerment, including for ex-TKI or former Indonesian migrant workers. "We hope that the development of the Shrimp Competitiveness Cluster in Sambas Regency can empower the community and provide benefits and improve the welfare of the people in Sambas Regency," said Catur. Previously, the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Sakti Wahyu Trenggono said that Indonesia's contribution to the fulfillment of the world shrimp market averaged 6.9 percent in the last five years. "We have to work on this market potential, especially the market that gives high value to Indonesian shrimp production, so that Indonesia is able to dominate the world shrimp market," said Minister Trenggono.
