Indonesia plans to grant China preferential treatment in dealing with its import rules in return for China lifting its ban on certain Indonesian products, Agriculture Minister Suswono told The Jakarta Post.
Suswono said the Agriculture Ministry had asked China to allow the entry of four Indonesian commodities currently banned from entering the Chinese market in exchange for issuing an exemption to Chinese apples, citrus, pears and garlic to be exported to Indonesia through specific ports — as stipulated in a series of regulations introduced last year.
“The commodities that we want to trade-off are snake fruit, mangosteen, avocados and swallow nests, of which the entries into China have been barred for failing to meet food safety standards,” Suswono said this week.
The trade-off is expected to be reached through a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA), slated to be inked later this year. The MRA will grant China access to all ports in Indonesia, including Indonesia’s largest port by volume, Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta, which has been excluded from the list of authorised entry points.
Last year, the Indonesian government tightened horticultural imports by reducing entry gateways for imports to only four ports, introducing importer licences and rules on coldstorage facilities for fruit and vegetable importers, and limiting import amounts of 15 horticulture products through a season-based quota system.
The plan to give special import treatment to China emerged in early June with the signing of a protocol on plant quarantine requirements for the export of snake fruit, according to The Jakarta Post. The protocol was hailed by Suswono and China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine Minister Zhi Suping during the latter’s visit.
China banned snake fruit imports from Indonesia in February due to pest and metal-containment findings. In December 2012, the country also rejected mangosteen shipments that were infested by fruit flies.
Indonesia exported 764,000 tonnes of snake fruit to China last year, reaching US$986,952 or 80 per cent of Indonesia’s total snake fruit exports.
The government plans to maintain 15 per cent snake fruit export growth and has earmarked 878,600 tonnes for export to China this year.
China is also the biggest importer of Indonesia’s mangosteen, accounting for 40 per cent of Indonesia’s total exports of the commodity, with 20,000 tonnes or US$20m per annum.
