US wants to import frozen kerapu from Indonesia

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The United States has expressed its readiness to import frozen `kerapu` seafish during a meeting with its Indonesian counterpart recently, Director General for Fish Breeding, Made L Nurjana said here on Tuesday.

The director general said that his office sometime ago held a meeting with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to discuss the U.S. importation of Indonesian shrimp. "The FDA said that consumers in the United States could also accept Indonesia`s frozen `kerapu` fish."

He said that Indonesia so far had exported its kerapu fish to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It was exported in live state so that the volumes were limited.

The director general said that kerapu fish which was exported in live state had high risk of dying on the way so that it was difficult to carry out exports of this fish in large volumes.

Apart from that, it would take one year to breed this fish until they could be harvested so that production volume was also difficult to increase.

He said that the United States would not limit the volume of its demand for kerapu fish, particularly the `kerapu tikus` (Cromileptes altivelis)fish type. Indonesia so far has been exporting white kerapu fish only, he added.