Heaptalk, Jakarta — PT Cilacap Samudera Fishing Industry Tbk (ASHA) announced has built a collaboration with Norwegian Engineers and Architects AS (NAS) to adopt the latest aquaculture technology in Indonesia. The collaboration is carried out through ASHA’s holding, PT Asha Fortuna Corpora.
Marking the collaboration, President Commissioner of ASHA, Asman, and President Director of NAS, Svein Gunnar Endresen, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in South Jakarta (05/08). The MoU signing was also witnessed by the President Director of ASHA, William Sutioso, and NAS Representative in Indonesia, Widya Utama.
By performing the collaboration, the Company hopes to implement the latest technology developed by NAS to increase fishery productivity to capture the demand for fishery products. “We deliberately cooperate with NAS since the Company owns an advanced aquaculture technology. As we know, Norwegian salmon is a well-known fishery product in Indonesia, yet we cannot produce it in tropical countries. However, we can adopt Norwegian aquaculture technology in tropical countries.” said William.
NAS is going to send its experts to conduct a feasibility study related to aquaculture in Indonesia. Further, the experts will help ASHA to implement aquaculture with a closed loop system. The system refers to the cultivation of fishery commodities on land using the closed space method.
William emphasized, “By implementing this (closed loop) system, biosecurity can be controlled. On the other hand, offshore aquaculture contains higher risk considering many external factors that we can’t control.” The system also is environmentally friendly as number of biowaste can be controlled.
The feasibility study is planned to be carried out on Lombok Island, West Nusa Tenggara Province, on an area of 30 hectares. This area was purposely opted since the land still has great water sanitation and far from the factory environment. With this consideration, ASHA expects to produce quality fishery products with high productivity.
The value of the collaboration, according to William, is predicted to reach US$80 million, of which 85% of development funds will be obtained from soft loans provided by the Norwegian Government.
Through the adoption of aquaculture technology developed by NAS, William hopes ASHA can reduce barriers to the aquaculture process in terms of infrastructure. The aquaculture commodities to be produced are vannamei shrimp, barramundi fish or Asian sea bass, and lobster.
As a representative of Norwegian Engineers and Architects AS in Indonesia, Widya Utama, said, “By implementing NAS technology for the fisheries sector, Indonesia can become a role model for quality aquaculture. This goal is aligned with the World Bank’s expectation, namely to bring Indonesia’s ability in fulfilling the needs of fishery commodities worldwide.”
The installation of the NAS technology infrastructure is expected to be completed in Q4 2023, hence the production process can be carried out in early 2024. The first production is projected to reach 3,000—5,000 tons with premium quality which will be focused on addressing European and American market demands.
Widya emphasized the implementation of aquaculture technology is required to be carried out to increase yield. According to him, without the implementation of aquaculture technology, the fishery yield remains stagnant, therefore it can’t fulfill the increase in food demand which is predicted to reach 70% in 2030.
Further, the implementation of aquaculture technology in Indonesia is expected to overcome the problem of the poor quality of fishery commodities. Widya said Indonesia is the 4th largest producer of vannamei shrimp. Unfortunately, the quality is relatively low.
The technology adoption includes the application of Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) in ponds with control over the water quality. With the maintained water quality, a high-quality aquaculture commodities can grow and produces large productivity. If this technology is successfully implemented, Indonesia can become a producer of premium quality barramundi fish which is also known as Asian salmon.
