Jakarta (VNA) – The Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (KKP) is increasing the number of patrol vessels to strengthen security in areas vulnerable to illegal fishing.
The ministry’s Director General of Marine and Fisheries Resources Surveillance Pung Nugroho Saksono recently said that the ministry is adding more vessels to effectively combat illegal fishing.
According to him, the ministry has received an additional budget of 2 trillion IDR (116 million USD) from Commission IV of the Indonesian House of Representatives to build ten new patrol vessels through a foreign loan from the Spanish Government.
Currently, the KKP operates 34 patrol vessels across Indonesia to monitor around 24,000 fishing boats, a figure far from sufficiency to ensure effective surveillance.
Saksono stated that ideally, the ministry should operate 70 patrol vessels, but currently only has 34. The new budget will allow for the construction of 10 additional vessels, increasing the total to 44.
Despite limited resources, the ministry continues to conduct surveillance operations across Indonesian waters and has begun to see improvements in enforcement.
The new patrol vessels will later be deployed in areas prone to illegal fishing, including the North Natuna Sea, the Arafura Sea, the Sulawesi Sea, and the Indian Ocean.
The funding will support the implementation of the Maritime and Fisheries Integrated Surveillance System (MFISS) project, which aims to strengthen the monitoring and eradication of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The MFISS project is expected to help prevent the loss of non-tax state revenue from the marine and fisheries sector while enhancing Indonesia’s technology-based integrated marine resource monitoring system./.
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