KINERJA DAYA SAING PRODUK PERIKANAN INDONESIA DI PASAR GLOBAL

In the global fisheries market, Indonesia is one of the main exporters. During 2005-2009, the export volumes of fish and shrimp of Indonesia declined by 1.9% and 3.7% per year respectively. It is necessary to investigate if the unexpected performance was caused by low and decreasing competitiveness or by other factors. This study uses the RCA Method, which is one of the methods that can be used to measure the comparative advantage of a commodity in a particular market. The results indicate that during 2007-2009 there are 46 commodities in the 6-digit HS of fisheries having the RCA index larger than one, showing their strong competitiveness in the international market. Some of them even have an increasing level of competitiveness, while some have a declining competitiveness and other commodities experienced fluctuating RCAs. The remaining 71 commodities experienced weak competitiveness (RCA index smaller than one) during 2007-2009. To improve the existing competitiveness, it is required to increase promotional campaigns, not only in domestic market but also in foreign market, improve the quality, encourage banks to increase access to working capital, improve infrastructure, encourage value-added products development, and reduce tariffs of raw material for the domestic fish processing industry.