The regional administrations across Indonesia needs to help improve the quality of export commodities so that any of the country’s products shipped overseas will meet the requirement of the destination countries, a senior trade official has said.

 

Trade Ministry director general for consumer protection and commerce (PKTN) Veri Anggrijono called on the regional administrations, through the local agencies in charge of trade affairs, to improve the quality of export commodities.

 

“One way of doing it is through the Agency for the Testing and Certification of the Quality of Goods,” he said, referring to the UPTD BPSMB.

 

Veri made the call during the opening of a working meeting on quality control in Bogor, West Java, on Thursday.

 

This activity is part of a series of activities to improve the performance and the role of 34 UPTD BPSMB throughout Indonesia. This event aims to strengthen the role of UPTD BPSMB, increase the synergy and contribution of UPTD BPSMB, improve the competence of human resources for testing the quality of goods through training and technical guidance in 2022.

 

In addition, in this event, the results of the study of the BPSMB Development roadmap were presented and also information on the contribution of the Conformity Assessment Institute (LPK) in handling trade technical barriers.

 

"There is a need for synergy between the Directorate General of PKTN at the Ministry of Trade and the Regional Administration in developing quality infrastructure in the regions in order to ensure quality assurance of regional potential commodities, especially in the applicable regulations, both in the domestic market and export destination countries," said Veri in his speech.

 

Veri said that in 2021 some export commodities failed to enter some export destination countries. One of them was nutmeg which found technical barriers in European Union. This commodity received nine notifications from the European Union consisting of five notifications related to aflatoxin content, one notification regarding the absence of a health certificate and three notifications related to the content of ochratoxin A.

 

Veri continued, other commodities that received notification from the European Union included black pepper (aflatoxin content), palm kernel (containing salmonella ruiru), fishery products (containing mercury and cadmium).

 

"Not only the European Union, some commodities exported to the United States also receive notifications regarding the content of aflatoxins in nuts, lead content in cinnamon powder and salmonella bacteria in spices such as pepper and nutmeg. Beside, ground coffee also got notification from Japan related to Isoprocarb pesticide residue content,” explained Veri.

 

Veri hopes that the Regional Administraion can identify potential regional commodities and improve testing capabilities through the accreditation of the National Accreditation Committee (KAN) for the scope of commodities as well as monitoring the quality of these commodities. (KH)