Indonesia's US trade attaché recently met with representatives of Charoen Pokphand Foods (CP Foods) to discuss methods for growing the country's US seafood exports.

Ranitya Kusumadewi said following the meeting in Columbia, Maryland, on Thursday (Feb. 20) the Indonesian government plans to introduce potential seafood suppliers to CP Foods at the upcoming Seafood Expo North America in Boston, Massachusetts, in March.

Indonesia will work with related stakeholders to recruit potential suppliers to be introduced to CPF.

"Indonesia has abundant seafood products, including red snapper," Kusumadewi said in statement, as reported by the ANTARA news service.

Indonesia's US seafood exports ranked seventh by value at $1.2 billion in 2023, good for a 5.5 percent market share.

Kusumadewi said Indonesia is targeting the US market for seafood export growth, given that the country is the world's largest importer of fishery products, with more than $21bn in imports in 2023, accounting for 15% of total global imports.

She said not only is demand growing for more popular products such as tuna, squid and tilapia, all of which CP Foods is now selling in the US, but consumer interest is also growing for a more diverse range of species, including red snapper.

CP Foods now imports 20 containers of red snapper per month into the US, with its total red snapper sales surpassing $2.5m annually. Kusumadewi said Indonesia can supplement that by filling supply gaps caused by seasonal dropoffs in domestic and Brazilian supply.

Kusumadewi said she's confident Indonesia can grow its US exports by also targeting tuna, grouper, tilapia and squid.

Currently, Indonesia's US seafood export portfolio primarily consists of shrimp, crabmeat and tuna.

Indonesia is not just relying on the US market to grow its export volumes. Barantin Sahat M. Panggabean, the head of the Indonesian Quarantine Agency, held a meeting with the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) in Jakarta, Indonesia, in April 2024 to discuss efforts to accelerate market access for Indonesian seafood exports, ANTARA reported.

Panggabean said technical issues regulated by the GACC have hampered Indonesian exports, including fishmeal and aquaculture products from entering China.

"The meeting discussed unresolved problems in order to accelerate our market penetration in China," he said in a press release, according to ANTARA.

Indonesia has set a five-year goal of becoming one of the world's top 10 seafood exporters by 2029, Tempo reported in October 2024. In 2023, Indonesia ranked 13th, with a market share of 3.03% based on total exports of $5.63bn. Indonesia exported $1.73bn worth of shrimp, $927.1bn worth of tuna and $762.6 million of squid, octopus and cuttlefish in 2023.