PRIMEX Director Jerome F. Sison has been engaged by Overseas Agro-fisheries Consultants Co. Ltd. (OAFIC) of Japan to undertake the financial and economic analysis of a proposed wholesale market distribution mechanism for Indonesia’s fishery sector.
Funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the study is part of Japan’s response to the request for technical assistance by Indonesia’s Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF). The two countries signed an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in 2007 to promote the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment between the two countries. The study is related to the “agricultural and fishery products wholesale markets” described in the Annex of the.
The study will lead to the design of a project that will improve fish wholesale and related facilities and services, including access roads to the fish wholesale market, in the Nizam Zachman Oceanic Fishing Port, commonly known as the Jakarta Fish Port or JFP.
As stated in the Inception Report, “Wholesale markets as distribution centers of agro-fishery products in Indonesia have generally become older, do not have enough space, and are not hygienic. Also, the products, whose handling take a longer time, lose freshness and/or are of poorer quality. As a result, a large portion of post-harvest loss occurs in the distribution stage.”
Currently, the distribution of agro-fishery products produced by small-scale farmers/fishers in Indonesia are mostly sold directly to middlemen without passing through public markets due to the lack of marketing and distribution infrastructure and their limited access to markets and market. This scenario, which puts marginalized farmers in a very weak position in terms of price determination, will be hopefully reversed by the JICA-funded project.
Dr. Sison is the only non-Japanese consultant in the international team fielded by OAFIC and Oriental Consultants (OC) to conduct the study.
In 2010, Dr. Sison also worked with these two firms in the formulation of a JICA-funded project designed to rehabilitate, improve, or upgrade selected Philippine municipal fishing ports nationwide.