Indonesia's Tuna Exports to Japan Down 50 Percent

This photograph taken on February 24, 2011 shows fishermen unloading freshly caught juvenile tuna at Bitung town fishport in North Sulawesi province. Bitung is one of the major fish port in Sulawesi island. Fishing is a thriving industry in Indonesia an archipelago of 17,000 islands. 

Indonesia’s tuna exports to Tokyo, the capital city of Japan, dropped by around 50 percent in the aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami which devastated the eastern coast of Japan last March 11, 2011.

"Our (tuna) exports to Japan dropped by around 50 percent," the marine affairs and fisheries ministry’s director general fishery product marketing and management, Victor Nikijuluw, said here Monday.
Indonesia usually exported 300 tons of tune per week to Tokyo, but last the the export volume was just 150 tons, he said. The country exports big eye and swordfish tuna to Tokyo.
Meanwhile, tuna exports to Nagoya and Osaka run normally because the two regions are not affected by the natural disaster. "Exports to Nagoya and Osaka are not affected," he said.
Earlier the ministry’s secretary general, Gellwyn Jusuf, had said that the Japan earthquake and subsequent tsunami had affected Indonesia’s fishery products exports to Japan, especially tuna and shrimp. The shrimp exports to Japan in the future might reach only one third of the usual shrimp export volume, he said last Thursday.
Indonesia would look for alternative countries of destination such as the European Union, the United States and China, as their demands for shrimp have increased, he said.