Indonesia urged to scrap fruit import barriers
Thailand's Commerce Ministry has urgently called on Indonesia to eliminate its non-tariff barriers, as its newly imposed measures have affected Thai exporters.
In June, the Indonesian government announced it was reducing the number of ports for importing fruit and vegetables. As of October 10, Indonesian imports of those products had dropped by 29.7 per cent year on year.
Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said yesterday that the reduction clearly showed that Jakarta’s measures to limit the number of ports had affected trading. Thailand, as one of the major exporters of fresh fruit to Indonesia, needs to negotiate to tackle the problem and ensure growth of Thai exports to that market.
He said it was not only Thai fruit traders that faced difficulty and inconvenience in exporting to Indonesia. The non-tariff barriers also limited export of other crops, jasmine rice, processed foods and medicines.
The barriers include limiting the number of import ports for particular goods. The new rules also require three-year trading contracts, provision of cold-storage facilities, and limited sales of Thai jasmine rice to hotels or restaurants but not at supermarkets. Some Thai halal products are also not accepted.
Boonsong said such stringent barriers had slowed export of Thai foods to Indonesia. To solve the problem, he has ordered the Trade Negotiations Department to negotiate with Indonesian authorities to reduce these barriers urgently.
Piramol Charoenpao, director-general of the department, said it had asked Thai officials at the World Trade Organisation to raise the issue for discussion at global trade talks. Other countries such as China, the United States, Canada, Australia, India, Vietnam and Malaysia have faced the same problem.
Thailand has also held bilateral meetings with Indonesia’s trade agency to solve the problem so that both sides could come up with a mutually recognised arrangement to eliminate non-tariff barriers soon.
According to the department, Indonesia is Thailand’s fourth-largest export market for fruits and vegetables, after mainland China, Hong Kong and Japan.
Export to Indonesia accounts for 10 per cent of total Thai fruit export value, which was worth US$113 million (Bt3.39 billion) last year.
