Montfoort, 7 Decemer 2019 – OFI President, Shane Willis, and Vice President, Svein A. Fosså attended Nusatic 2019 at the ICE centre in Jakarta from 29 November to December 1. The show was well attended and larger than the previous year. The fish competitions included Bettas, Discus, Flowerhorn, and Koi, as well as an Aquascaping competition, the quality of fish was a high standard with some interesting new varieties. During the show, OFI was able to meet with many of our Indonesian members as well as the newly appointed Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Edhy Prabowo and several senior government officials from the ministry. This was a great opportunity for to discuss some of the issues for ornamental fish in Indonesia such as the ongoing coral export suspension and the upcoming CITES Marine Aquarium Fish Collection workshop to be conducted sometime in 2020.
It was a great pleasure to attend the meeting and to be invited to be part of the Opening and Closing ceremonies. OFI President, Shane Willis was asked to make a speech at the closing ceremony. The text of the speech is as follows:
“Honoured dignitaries and guests, the Nusatic organising committee, fish associations and volunteers, exhibitors and visitors. A sincere thank you to all of you for all your efforts to make this another successful Nusatic. Shows like Nusatic are important for our industry. Many of us work tirelessly on our businesses and often focus on this so much we can loose touch with the larger industry. Having a show like Nusatic allows people from all sectors of the industry from farmers, exporters, importers, hobbyists, drygoods manufacturers and government to come together to talk and share ideas about our industry. It gives us the chance to meet old friends and make many new ones. By doing this we exchange ideas and information that helps make our industry stronger and grow.
Now more than ever it is important for us to work closely together as an industry. We see many challenges coming in the form of increasing regulation and pressures from stakeholders and consumers. Industry must rise to these challenges in managing issues like Invasive Species, Biosecurity, sustainability and ensure we operate within the law and to worlds best practice.
The Indonesian industry has faced a great challenge with the coral export suspension, but we are hopeful that exports of farmed and sustainably wild collected corals will begin early next year. We see further challenges ahead for the industry though. CITES now proposes to hold a workshop to discuss the collection of marine ornamental fish which could result in an increase to the cost and complexity of doing business, as well as listing of more species on CITES appendices. This will be an expensive fight and we will be calling on the Indonesian industry to help in this process to ensure that the workshop receives factual data for their decision making.
However, despite these problems the Indonesian industry continues to grow and exports of ornamental fish have almost doubled in the past several years. Indonesian is the second largest exporter and could become the number one in a few years’ time based on recent trends.
I once again thank everyone for the opportunity to be a part of Nusatic 2019 and for the kind hospitality you have shown me. I hope you have all had a successful and prosperous Nusatic 2019 and I look forward to seeing you all next year at Nusatic 2020.

OFI President Shane Willis (centre right) discusses industry issues with Indonesian Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Edhy Prabowo (centre) at Nustaic 2019.
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