Indonesia sees first online fish auction market open

Workers move crates of fish during an auction in Muara Angke fishing port in North Jakarta in 2013. (JP/R. Berto Wedhatama). Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.

JAKARTA, Jul 21, 2019, The Jakarta Post. Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Panndjaitan inaugurated on Saturday the first online fish auction site (TPI) in Indonesia as a pilot project for the Satu Juta Nelayan Berdaulat (1 Million Sovereign Fishermen) program in Palangpang, Sukabumi, West Java, reported The Jakarta Post.

“The program is not only being conducted in Sukabumi, but will also be done for the whole of Indonesia, but the inauguration is being done here [Sukabumi] first. So from Ciwaru, Sukabumi it will be developed everywhere,” said Luhut on Sunday, in a press conference in Jakarta as quoted by Antara news agency.

It is one of the government’s efforts to reduce poverty, realizing the potential profits to be gained from the sea which are estimated to be US$2.5 trillion, said Luhut.

Luhut added that with an online auction, fishermen would not have to use money to conduct transactions, and could directly inform the “fish market” about their hauls while still at sea.

“While they [fishermen] are still at sea, the ‘fish market’ will already know what is in the catch and transactions can be done while at sea. To support this we partnered with signal transmitter startup Net1, which can transmit up to a distance of 60 kilometers, using Wi-Fi,” said Luhut.

Luhut hopes that with the online system, fishermen will no longer be fooled by middlemen.

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