JAKARTA: National Standardization Agency will add four product sectors to implement Indonesias national standards.Such effort is expected to strengthen the competitiveness of domestic products against the tariff liberalization following the implementation of Asean-China Free Trade Agreement.Those four sectors that will be included in the priority implementation of Indonesia National Standard (SNI) are furniture, ceramics, stationery, and medical devices. Such policy makes the total industry priority to 15 sectors.The recommendation to add these four sectors derives from businessman and its recommended after considering the industry readiness in dealing with Chinese products after the implementation of Asean China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA), Head of National Standardization Agency (BSN) Bambang Setiadi said.BSN also considers the trade transaction value that exceeded US$100 million in the addition of SNI priority.We have had 11 priority industry sectors and we sees four other that must be included into the list, Bambang added.Earlier, BSN has set 11 priority sectors such as steel, textile and product textile, footwear, and petrochemicals.The total determined SNI that has been determined in 11 priority sectors were 1,570 SNI or 23% of the total SNI determined until the end of 2010 around 6,799 SNI.The SNI adjustment to those four sectors must be conducted since imported product brings large pressure on the industry sector.The agency will also revise the SNI for fermented cocoa beans so that it can be accepted in the international market.In such revision, BSN will adopt standard used by Ivory Coast as the worlds largest cocoa producer and adapt with the standard from the International Standardization Organization (ISO).Indonesia has owned cocoa beans SNI and adopted the ISOs standard while Ivory Coast applied it almost 100%, BSNs Deputy for Research and Standardization Cooperation T.A.R Hanafiah said.However, Ivory Coast uses first and second quality, which makes Indonesias product more difficult to compete in international market since it uses the third quality.Regional standardApart from SNI, the agency is also attempt to create Asian regional standard for fermented soybean patty. Bambang expects such standard formulation will able to facilitate the commodity penetration in overseas markets.He is optimistic the regional standard can be formulated immediately since Codex Allimentarius Commission (Codex) has approved the regional standard for fermented soybean patty proposed by Indonesia as New Work Proposal in late June.Indonesia has a technical standard for fermented soybean patty as specified in SNI 3144:2009, which has effective since October 9, 2009.The New Work Proposal will be followed up with draft composing and discussion through Electronic and Physical Working Group so that the standard for fermented soybean patty can be set as Asian regional standard.According to him, the standard for fermented soybean patty is necessary since such commodity industry in the country has developed quite rapidly. Currently, there are 32 171 operating units in the industry and absorb 83,352 labors.Meanwhile, raw material value for such industry reached IDR54.9 trillion, production value IDR92.3 trillion, and creation value IDR37.3 trillion.Australia, Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea also consumes fermented soybean patty. Currently, demands from Malaysia and Singapore reaching to 10-30 tons per month while export to Japan and Australia amounting to 8 tons per annum. (11) (t06/msw)

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