East Kalimantan has been developing its fishery sector – including by financing a fish auction building in Muara Badak district, Kutai Kartanegara regency – since 2017 with a total investment of IDR 165.39 billion. The project is part of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM)’s 47 national projects.
Kutai Kartanegara regency, which capital is in Tenggarong, has an area of 27,263.10 square kilometers (sqkm) and a water area of 4,097 sqkm. In 2020, the population of the regency reached 729,382 people.,
East Kalimantan is a province with rich history, including the Kutai Kartanegara sultanate which dated back to the 1300s. The province has a total area of 127,346.92 sqkm. In 2021, its population was recorded at 3,808,235 people, with 87.41% of them were Muslims. The province offers 6 investment opportunities, 3 industrial zones, 10 airports, 18 ports, 33 educational facilities, 135 hotels and 49 hospitals.
Muara Badak fish auction
On July 16, 2022, the Kutai Kartanegara Marine Affairs and Fisheries Agency said it would finance the construction of a fish auction building worth IDR10 billion in Muara Badak.
Apart of Muara Badak, there were two other fish auction places in the province namely Samboja and Anggana. The construction of the fish auction will start by acquiring the land needed for the building. Currently, the project is still in the planning phase.
The Muara Badak fish auction concept will be based on a port or harbor concept. East Kalimantan administration and a ministry will allocate the fund for the construction. However, the BKPM did not mention which ministry would be responsible for the fund allocation.
Meanwhile, the regency administration contributed to support the fishery sector.
“We will develop shrimp cultivation in Muara Badak with an area of 5 hectares, in accordance with the MoU with the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries,” said Kutai Kartanegara Regent Edi Damansyah on April 6, 2021.
Risks on Muara Badak fishery
There are several problems in fishery sector, especially diseases which cause death. Another problem is the decrease in living quality and other complex problems such as extreme weather that causes high rain intensity. In Indonesia, there had been a virus that killed fish in the 1980s, causing about 82.2 tons of fish to die in one month. The lethal disease could spread wildly.
The fisheries ministry’s Secretary of the Directorate General of Aquaculture, Tri Hariyanto, said on March 7, 2018, that there were several fish-killer diseases such as Motil Aeromonas Septicemia (MAS), Acute Hepatopancreatic Necrosis Disease (AHPND), White Feces Syndrome (WFS), Enterozyton Hepatopenaei (EHP) and Tilapia Lake Virus (TILV).
