Agricom.id, MANADO – Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo did work visit to North Sulawesi and released the agricultural product exports, such as, nutmeg, clove, grated coconut, coconut milk, and coconut flower for about 3.766 tons to German, China, India, Singapore, Japan, and Turkey. The export release was to inspect directly the export preparation.
“Every commodity has passed through series of inspection in agriculture quarantine to fulfill the conditions in the importer countries,” he said when releasing the exports and inspecting and also giving the health quarantine certificate in the surrounding of Badan Penelitian Tanaman Palma (BALITPALMA), North Minahasa, Sunday (30/8) as in the official written statement to Agricom.id.
SYL thought that the mainstay exports from the province could be about Rp 62,1 billion and everything is safe. Everything has passed the sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) measures, just like the regulations in the 7 importer countries. He thought that the trade barriers are not popular anymore in the global trade but it is about technical barrier to trade (TBT), which means, the barrier is derived from the technical issues, such as, the quality of products, the packaging, the mark, and the food safety condition.
“That is why the SPS measure to do trade is the important issue. Badan karantina pertanian (Barantan) as the authority has the strategic roles to guarantee the health and security of agricultural products in our country to compete,” he said.
SYL also mentioned that besides protocol, Barantan also encouraged the integrated process through digital servie, such as, digital certificate or e-Cert to many countries. The certificate would be sent in the first place. After it is approved, the products would be sent and the importer countries would get them. There would be rejection or re-export.
"There are four countries implementing the system, they are, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, and Netherland. I need, if it could, whole countries do that. It is the target,” he said.
The Reinforcement of Quarantine System
Head of Barantan, Ministry of agriculture, Ali Jamil said that his side keeps reinforcing the quarantine system by the implementation of the new laws of quarantine. The new regulation responded the trade development whole over the world to conserve the natural resources.
"Barantan should play the strategic roles as the agricultural facilitator in the international trade,” he said.
He also mentioned that in the legal substance, the job desks of Barantan would not be only about the quarantined animal and pest disease, and quarantined plantation pest, but also about the safety and control of food quality and the origin of the products.
“Of course we need to respond TBT policy in the international trade. We also do field check, develop the SPS technical condition for the businessmen, do inline inspection, give information access with the clinic exports too. The main thing is to reinforce the quarantine system in the border so that the our agricultural exports could be accepted and could compete in the global markets,” he said.
Head of Karantina Pertanian, Manado, Donni Muksyidayan Saragih said that based on the central bureau of statistic data released on August 18th, 2020 revealed that in the first semester of 2020 the agricultural exports in North Sulawesi reached 17,82% (year on year). The products were sold in 46 countries within 25 products in the pandemic.
“Besides the numbers, the good quality fulfilled the SPS measure as the technical conditions. These made them sold easily,” he said. A2
