Jakarta. Indonesia is expecting to see its shrimps have a stronger position in the American market after both countries signed a regulatory framework agreement.

Indonesia is trying to boost its fishery exports. The government is aiming to export $7.2 billion worth of fishery products throughout 2024. To this end, Indonesia has made a regulatory framework agreement in relation to the product’s quality assurance.

The deal sees Indonesia working together with the US to improve the so-called whole genome sequencing (WGS) capacity. The US has made similar WGS partnerships with fellow shrimp exporters Ecuador and India.

According to Ishartini, the director general for the quality assurance agency at the Marine Affairs and Fishery Ministry, lab tests today are using WGS platforms to monitor food-borne diseases.

“If we don’t follow this scheme or the agreed cooperation, Indonesian shrimps-food safety would face strict border measures when they enter the US. Of course, that could be detrimental to us,” Ishartini was quoted as saying in a recent press statement.

Under this partnership, the University of Maryland’s Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) will work with the ministry’s quality assurance agency on some technical assistance. The partnership revolves around the WGS-based food-borne disease surveillance of shrimp aquaculture.

The partnership was timely as Marine Affairs and Fishery Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono had launched a shrimp cultivation project in Central Java’s Kebumen. The 100-hectare project becomes Indonesia’s first modern shrimp pond modeling, according to the minister.

The project consists of 149 pond plots equipped with water intakes, reservoirs, maintenance plots, and wastewater treatment plants, to name a few. Other facilities include labs for tests, an office building, warehouses to store feed and production tools, an operator’s dorm, as well as a post-harvest building.