RI'S IMPORTS OF INNARDS DROP

Jakarta, Jan 9 (ANTARA) - Indonesia's imports of innards in the past three years have dropped from formerly above 58.25 percent in 2006 to 14.2 percent of total national meat imports in 2009.

The director of veterinary public health of the directorate of animal husbandry of the ministry of agriculture, Turni Rusli Syamsudin, said here on Saturday imports had dropped because the government as of 2007 banned imports of a number of innards such as intestines, tripe of ruminants and lungs.

"Since 2007 the government has only allowed the import of only two out of eight kinds of innards namely heart and liver," he said.

He admitted countries that had exported meat to Indonesia had been made angry by the decision, such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

In those countries innards are not consumed but made into animal feeds or "garbage" and therefore are sold cheaply, he said.

Therefore the government has decided to limit imports to only two innards, he said.

He said in 2004 out of total cow meat product imports reaching 48,300 tons, 36,500 tons or 75.3 percent of them were innards while pure meat imports reached only 11,800 tons.

In 2006 imports of innards although still reaching 36,500 tons in percentage they had dropped to only 58.5 percent of total meat imports reaching 62,400 tons with pure meat imports totalling 25,900 tons.

In 2007 imports of innards totalled only 13,800 tons or 21.6 percent of total meat imports reaching 64,000 tons, 50,000 tons of them were meat.

In 2009 imports of meat rose to 64,100 tons of total meat imports reaching 74,700 tons while imports of innards dropped to 14.2 percent or 10,600 tons.

Regarding imports of meat in 2009, Turni said they rose to 74,700 tons from 70,100 tons in 2008.

In 2010 the government expects imports of meat would drop by 15 percent from the previous year.