Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Develops International Class Fisheries Quality Assurance System

 

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (KKP) continues to strive to ensure that Indonesia's quality and safety assurance system for marine and fisheries products (SJMKHKP) is of international class and on par with developed countries.

 One effort was made by collaborating with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), implementing SJMHKP upstream and downstream for fishery products and commodities that meets international parameters and standards.

"In order for our products to be on par, of course our quality assurance system must be recognized that its implementation is equivalent to that adopted by developed countries," said Acting Head of BPPMHKP, Ishartini in a written statement in Jakarta, Tuesday (30/1/2024).

The collaboration between BPPMHKP as the competent authority and person responsible for quality assurance with UNIDO is carried out under the umbrella of capacity building cooperation. This collaboration began with strengthening the implementation of quality assurance in the fisheries supply chain. Ishartini explained that the project with UNIDO includes 6 scopes which are a continuation of previous collaboration in phase 1.

Therefore, in phase 2 of the collaboration, BPPMHKP carries the theme "Global Quality and Standards Program: Developing Robust Quality Assurance in Fisheries". "It is important that the quality assurance that we carry out is truly appropriate and accepted globally," he continued.

The six scopes of BPPMHKP - UNIDO cooperation include harmonization and adjustment of the quality assurance system according to the BPPMHKP mandate. Then develop the capacity of fish inspectors/auditors on an international scale. Third, strengthening certification on the scale of business actors, followed by remote audits and inspections.

"Then there is a program to strengthen the capacity of quality testing laboratories through the Reference Material Producer (RMP) on food safety parameters and finally ASEAN cooperation," said Ishartini.

For the record, Indonesia, through the KKP, has demonstrated its capacity in implementing quality assurance in the Southeast Asia region, especially ASEAN. Finally, at the ASEAN Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Contact Point or ASCP forum last year, Indonesia and Thailand were expected to become role models in cooperation in digitizing fishery commodity trade certificates.

For information, phase 1 of the KKP-UNIDO cooperation has been taking place since October-December 2023. This phase is also referred to as the UNIDO inspection or checking point on SJMKHP carried out by BPPMHKP.

During this period, the two institutions held a number of meetings as well as holding focus group discussions (FGD), and created a working team in order to move towards phase 2 cooperation which is planned to last until 2026.

Previously, Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Sakti Wahyu Trenggono emphasized the importance of quality assurance as technical support for the implementation of five priority programs. According to him, quality control remains the KKP's domain, from upstream to downstream. KKP itself has also designed a large program with the theme Blue Economy.