Jakarta. Indonesia should try to tap into the world’s tilapia market as the global demand for the fish topped $14 billion in value, according to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

Despite the fantastic global demand, Jokowi does not want Indonesia to immediately rush into the industry, saying that the country should start small with a pilot project. To this end, Indonesia is starting with an 80-hectare “modeling site” dedicated to breeding saline tilapia. 

“The tilapia fish has an incredibly huge global demand, even reaching $14.4 billion in 2024. This is approximately Rp 230 trillion, that’s huge. We need to seize this huge market potential,” Jokowi said when launching the saline tilapia pond in the West Java town of Karawang on Wednesday.

The government reported that West Java’s north coast area of Pantura had 78,000-hectare non-producing shrimp ponds. The recently launched saline tilapia pond is part of this idle shrimp breeding site that has stopped production since 1998. If the program is a success, the tilapia fish’s production can increase from 0.6 tons per hectare to around 80 tons per hectare, according to Jokowi.

The program is also set to spur job creation. The president estimated that repurposing the entire idle site for saline tilapia farming would require approximately Rp 13 trillion ($808 million).

“Rp 13 trillion is not much. If [the modeling project] shows that [the tilapia breeding] is really feasible, I will include the program in the 2025-2026 state budget allocation,” Jokowi said.

“I will tell the upcoming government and President-Elect [Prabowo Subianto] to make sure that we can really make this big dream come true,” Jokowi added.

According to government data, Indonesia’s fishery exports totaled $5.6 billion in January-November 2023, compared with the $6.2 billion fishery exports throughout 2022. The country aimed to export $6.7 billion of fishery products in 2023.