Anggi M. Lubis, Jakarta – The government needs to review regulations that limit the import of horticultural products as the shortage of locally grown fruits is unable to meet the high demand.
Indonesia Retailers Association (Aprindo) deputy general-secretary Satria Hamid Ahmadi said locally grown fruits – despite unpredictable supplies – could not substitute imported fruits.
"The government must review import regulations considering high demands that cannot be met by the domestic supply," Satria said. "The price of imported fruits at modern markets has doubled while the price of local fruits has increased by 10 to 20 percent in the past few months," he added.
According to Satria, due to scarcity, the price of imported apples has doubled to Rp 127,500 (US$13.12) per kilogram within the past three weeks. Meanwhile, the prices of local fruits such as mangosteen and avocado, had increased to Rp 15,000 and Rp 19,000 a kilogram, respectively, from previously Rp 13,000 and Rp 17,000.
Sobir, director of the Center for Tropical Horticulture Studies at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), said Indonesia was not ready to apply the import regulations considering growing domestic demands and insufficient local production.
"The country's domestic need for fruits is rising by up to two percent each year, in line with economic and population growth," Sobir said.
Data from the Agriculture Ministry said that Indonesia needed around 6.6 tons of fruit to meet the domestic market demand in 2010, while the country produced only 543,900 tons of fruit that year.
In 2012, the country imported 834,463 tons of fruit with a total value of $887.94 million and booked a trade deficit of 609,203 tons valued at $653.75 million.
Despite the high demands, the government has limited the import of several horticultural products, including durian, pineapple, honeydew, bananas, mangos and papayas, effective from January until June this year through a series of regulations introduced by the Agriculture Ministry and the Trade Ministry last year.
The government has also limited import gateways to only four points: Belawan Port in Medan, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Tanjung Perak Port in Surabaya and Soekarno-Hatta Port in Makassar.
The import policies have ignited contestation from the US, which filed a consultation request with the World Trade Organization (WTO) in January for allegedly breaching the organization's anti-protectionism rules. The Indonesian government has deliberated to revise the regulations following the complaint.
Deputy Agriculture Minister Rusman Heriawan said the government would soon introduce the revisions to mitigate the import limitation, to both protect farmers and meet domestic needs under ways "that will not violate the WTO's measures".
"We will keep regulating horticulture import through the quota system in the second half of this year, but the limitations will be applied more loosely. We are also considering tariff barriers," Rusman said.
The revision, according to Agriculture Ministry acting director general for the agriculture processing and marketing, Haryono, is expected to conclude by June to ease the imports in the second half of this year.
The Trade Ministry, on the other hand, has revised Ministerial Regulation No. 60/2012 and introduced a new regulation on Monday. The new regulation excludes 18 horticultural products – including garlic, some flowers and some processed commodities – from the previous 57 products – but none of the excluded products were fresh fruit.