Jakarta. Indonesia expects the upcoming meeting on the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) to agree on the full operations of a system that enables countries to exchange data on port inspection results of foreign-flagged fishing vessels.

Next week, parties to the PSMA will gather in Bali for a fourth meeting on the Food and Agriculture Organization pact. As part of the PSMA, port states have a system where they can share information on their decisions taken over foreign-flagged fishing vessels entering their ports.

This PSMA global information exchange system (GIES) is expected to help countries deny entry for vessels engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing or subject them to port inspection. 

The GIES entered its pilot phase in 2021 and is now waiting for full operations.

“The GIES adoption in the upcoming Bali meeting can make the PSMA implementation more efficient and effective,” Nilanto Perbowo, a Fisheries Ministry official and the chairperson for the 4th PSMA meeting, told reporters in Jakarta on Thursday.

According to Nilanto, there are still a few square brackets —matters or text on a document that is still under discussion— in regard to the GIES talks.

“All parties to the PSMA are on the same page that we need to conclude the GIES talks. The square brackets are also not of much a significant [hurdle], and they were left from the previous working group talks,” he said.

Nilanto said the parties’ willingness for data sharing —and whether to make it real-time or not— becomes the most challenging thing to address in the GIES discussions.

“To this day, the PSMA Secretariat still reminds all member states to submit their ‘contact person’ to be able to access the GIES,” he said.

“Member states have requested a capacity building initiative so they can master the [GIES] application. Another challenge in the GIES discussions is what sort of data we need to put into the GIES system,” Nilanto said.

Indonesia ratified the PSMA in 2016, bringing together 75 signatories to the agreement including the European Union (EU).

Indonesia has designated four ports to implement the port state measures, namely the Nizam Zachman Fishing Port, Bitung Fishing Port, Bungus Fishing Port and the Benoa Port. As of April 28, the Benoa Port has inspected 12 Japanese-flagged fishing vessels under the port state measures.

Indonesia has recorded the inspection results of these 12 vessels on the pilot GIES app. None of the fishing vessels indicate apparent infringements.