TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture decided to temporarily suspend China - Indonesia’s bilateral trade in agriculture and animal products. This is done as an attempt to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading to Indonesia after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global emergency.

“All Chinese agriculture [exports and imports] are suspended. Food imports from China will also be temporarily suspended,” said Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo at his office on Tuesday, February 4.

This comes as one of the government’s three official safety measures to prevent the Wuhan virus from entering Indonesia. The volume of agriculture products imported from China is not large, with garlic as the biggest imported commodity. Indonesia roughly imports 500-560 tons of garlic annually.

The same policy has also been applied for import and export to countries other than China that have reported confirmed cases of coronavirus transmission, which currently amounts to 25 countries. The Indonesian government is also intensifying its efforts to disinfect agriculture imports.

“We are working swiftly and checking [locations in the field] together with other state ministries upon spraying disinfectants,” said the Minister of Agriculture.

FRANCISCA CHRISTY ROSANA