The Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan) will continue to focus on spurring exports of swallow's nest commodity (SBW) which has shown an increase in the last 5 years. This livestock sub-sector product has even been asked to become a new icon for agricultural exports. From data released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), agricultural exports in January 2021 recorded growing 13.91 percent on an annual basis or year on yeat (YoY). The export performance of swallow's nest commodity together with aromatic commodities, spices and forest products is the biggest contributor. "As the largest exporter of swallow's nest in the world, many Indonesian business actors are targeting the Chinese market because the selling price is higher than other destination countries," said Head of the Agricultural Quarantine Agency Ali Jamil in a written statement (22/2/2021).
According to Jamil, in 2020, out of 1.1 thousand tons of swallow's nest exports, 23 percent or 262 tons managed to enter China. The remaining 77 percent goes to 22 other countries such as Australia, Hong Kong to the United States. Chairman of the Indonesian Bird's Nest Entrepreneurs Association (PPSBI) Boedi Mranata also said that the process of penetrating the Chinese market took a long and long time. "It takes seriousness and high appropriateness to be able to meet the standards, because besides the nitrite content, hygiene / sanitation is also needed according to international food safety standards," he said. "The Chinese authorities (The General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China, or GACC) also require tracebility. They already use technology in the form of barcodes, so they can't mess around," said Boedi.
Technically, the Head of the Center for Animal Quarantine and Animal Safety of the Ministry of Agriculture (Barantan), the Ministry of Agriculture, Agus Sunanto, said that his party supports business players who have the interest and ability to enter the Chinese market."In a pandemic situation, the GACC has not been able to conduct a direct audit of Indonesia, and asked the Indonesian authorities in this case Barantan to verify it," said Agus.
Currently there are 23 exporters that have been registered by China and 13 new exporters who are in the audit process. The process has been running since 2019 by the GACC, but was stopped due to the pandemic in 2020. Furthermore, the Chinese authorities asked Barantan to continue the audit process. Including filling out additional questionnaires and making videos of swallow houses and processing sites in Chinese. "All of our processes are carried out virtually. There are no restrictions or export quotas for the Chinese market, there is a match between the amount of production and production capacity," said Agus.
The support of various parties including local governments, business actors and other agencies is very important so that the bird's nest from Indonesia can be in a good ecosystem. "We hope that in the near future more and more SBW business actors will be able to penetrate the Chinese market and other markets. We encourage them to continue to contribute to increasing exports in the agricultural sector," Agus concluded.
Source: https://m.liputan6.com/bisnis/read/4489666/sarang-burung-walet-jadi-ikon-baru-ekspor-pertanian
