Competitiveness of and Barriers to Indonesia’s Exports of Ornamental Fish

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper entitled” Competitiveness and Barriers to Indonesia's Exports of Ornamental Fish” deals with a very interesting topic, and it included interesting ideas. In general, I appreciate the aims of this work; it is quite interesting and informative to most readers of this field.

.  However, I have the following comments that hopefully help the authors improve their paper:

·       The scientific problem needs more background. The authors need to provide why such manuscript should be written at all. I suggest that the authors give more introduction about why your study is important in the section of introduction.

·       The structure (outline) of the paper could be given at the end of the introductory chapter.

·       In relation to literature review, I would strongly encourage authors to provide a summary table of comprehensive literature review that will not only identify the gaps in the literature but also strengthen the contribution of this work.

·       What are the limitations of the study in terms of the proposed method, data used, approaches, and/or analysis?

·       It could be interesting to discuss in the conclusion part, the future work, several potential futures research should be addressed.

·       As usual a final thorough proof-reading is recommended.

 I wish the author(s) all the best for their research and that these comments will be useful to them in improving the paper.

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

The paper entitled” Competitiveness and Barriers to Indonesia's Exports of Ornamental Fish” deals with a very interesting topic, and it included interesting ideas. In general, I appreciate the aims of this work; it is quite interesting and informative to most readers of this field.

However, I have the following comments that hopefully help the authors improve their paper:

The scientific problem needs more background. The authors need to provide why such manuscript should be written at all. I suggest that the authors give more introduction about why your study is important in the section of introduction.

 

Response :  

Thank you for your appreciation.

This study is important for all stakeholders in the ornamental fish industry, especially policymakers who play a significant role in improving the export competitiveness of this industry. We added this information in the fourth paragraph of the introduction section.

 

The structure (outline) of the paper could be given at the end of the introductory chapter.

Response :

We added the structure of the paper at the end of the introduction section.

 

In relation to literature review, I would strongly encourage authors to provide a summary table of comprehensive literature review that will not only identify the gaps in the literature but also strengthen the contribution of this work.

Response :

Thank you for your valuable suggestion regarding the literature review. In response to your suggestion, we add a summary table of export competitiveness in the literature review section of our paper.

 

What are the limitations of the study in terms of the proposed method, data used, approaches, and/or analysis?

Response  :  

We added the study limitations in Section 6.

 

It could be interesting to discuss in the conclusion part, the future work, several potential futures research should be addressed.

Response :  

We added a discussion on future work and potential areas for further research in section 6.

 

As usual a final thorough proof-reading is recommended.

Response:

We appreciate your suggestion. To ensure the quality of our paper, we are aware of the significance of a final, comprehensive proofreading. We utilize various tools and resources to ensure accuracy and clarity during proofreading. Grammarly is one of the tools we use to identify grammatical errors, misspellings, and punctuation problems. It contributes to improving the overall readability and coherence of our document.

 

 I wish the author(s) all the best for their research and that these comments will be useful to them in improving the paper.

 

Response: Sincere gratitude for your kind wishes and insightful feedback. We truly appreciate your encouragement and support of our research. Your insights and perspectives will undoubtedly contribute to the improvement of the quality and influence of our paper. We appreciate the time and effort you've devoted to reviewing our work, and we will consider your suggestions carefully as we continue to refine and improve our research. Your well wishes and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated, and we are motivated to incorporate your feedback into our paper to make it even more effective. Again, we appreciate your support and look forward to sharing our future progress with you.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

 

The paper analysis the attempt expansion of the ornamental fish industry in Indonesia. The topic is a creative and interesting one that, to be the best of my knowledge have not received a lot of academic coverage. The authors did a survey of academic and practitioners in the industry. There is clear some hard work behind this paper as for example the survey took 8 months for completion. The authors did a good job with the literature review mentioning 92 papers.

 

I have a few comments:

1)       Line 178, “…semi-structured interviews [47] with open-ended 178 questions”, Why was this approach followed? When doing surveys normally the questions tend to be carefully defined in advanced to avoid having interpretation issues. It is well-known that people can respond differently to the same question asked in a different way.

2)       Line 413: 4.2.2. Foreign Language

English skills is mentioned as a trade barrier but I think that it requires a bit more explanation. Any estimates on the proportion of breeders speaking English? Any intermediaries (more likely o speak English)? What’s the transactional language in the region (South East Asia) for this type of business  

3)       Line 452: “Quality, quantity, and continuity are three issues…” this seems a major point in this paper and needs to be highlighted a bit more. What’s the size of the usual breeder i.e., production capability? Not clear why there should be quality issues only because it is an “artisanal” approach

4)       I think it would be good to have a bit more detail about the RCA calculation (the technical details)

5)       The conclusions are well thought but please review the wording as it is a bit hard to follow sometimes

6)       Indonesia is a rather large country but there is no information about the regional difference in the industry in the paper (sorry if I missed it). I think that it would be interesting to have some comments on this regard as I assume that there could be substantial differences.

 

Minor details

1)       Some of the formulas and tables could be presented in a better way

The authors should check the grammar and spealling.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

The paper analysis the attempt expansion of the ornamental fish industry in Indonesia. The topic is a creative and interesting one that, to be the best of my knowledge have not received a lot of academic coverage. The authors did a survey of academic and practitioners in the industry. There is clear some hard work behind this paper as for example the survey took 8 months for completion. The authors did a good job with the literature review mentioning 92 papers.

Response :

We truly appreciate your encouragement and support of our research. Your insights and perspectives will undoubtedly contribute to the improvement of the quality and influence of our paper. We appreciate the time and effort you've devoted to reviewing our work, and we will consider your suggestions carefully as we continue to refine and improve our research.  Again, we appreciate your support and look forward to sharing our future progress with you. We intended to contribute to the existing literature by investigating a topic with limited academic attention. By conducting interviews involving both academic researchers and industry professionals, we aimed to gain a thorough understanding of the topic.

 

I have a few comments:

 

• Line 178, “…semi-structured interviews [47] with open-ended 178 questions”, Why was this approach followed? When doing surveys normally the questions tend to be carefully defined in advanced to avoid having interpretation issues. It is well-known that people can respond differently to the same question asked in a different way.

Response :

We used semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions to gain a deeper understanding of participants’ perspectives and experiences of the various barriers to Indonesian ornamental fish exports. Semi-structured interviews provide an opportunity for interviewees to express their thoughts in their own way, allowing for flexibility and exploration of diverse perspectives. However, due to the open-ended nature of the questions, we were aware of possible interpretation issues and variations in answers. To address these issues, we implemented a strict interview protocol that ensured clarity of communication and minimized potential bias. In addition, we used techniques such as follow-up questions and explanations to increase the reliability and validity of the data collected.

 

• Line 413: 4.2.2. Foreign Language

English skills is mentioned as a trade barrier but I think that it requires a bit more explanation. Any estimates on the proportion of breeders speaking English? Any intermediaries (more likely o speak English)? What’s the transactional language in the region (South East Asia) for this type of business 

Response :

English language skills are required especially for transactions with customers from Europe and the United States. To address your concerns, we've added a comparison of Indonesians' English language skills with those of other exporting countries in Southeast Asia based on data from EF. In EF's report on the English proficiency index in 2022, Indonesia is ranked 81 out of 111 countries, far below Singapore at number 2 and Malaysia at number 24. However, Indonesia is still better than Thailand which is ranked 97.

• Line 452: “Quality, quantity, and continuity are three issues…” this seems a major point in this paper and needs to be highlighted a bit more. What’s the size of the usual breeder i.e., production capability? Not clear why there should be quality issues only because it is an “artisanal” approach

Response :  The production capacity of different breeders varies. However, the message we are making here is that it can be difficult for exporters to locate fish of export-quality due to its low quantity and poor quality. It often happens that ornamental fish varieties required for export are not available in the market. In response to your comment regarding the mention of quality concerns in the artisanal approach, we apologize for the misunderstanding. Some export ornamental fish may be classified as ornamental fish of show quality, while others are of export market standard quality. Breeders frequently cannot meet the size and color uniformity requirements of the export market. Therefore, exporters frequently sort ornamental fish that meet export requirements. Additional information about quality of the ornamental fish has been added to the paper section 4.2.4.

• I think it would be good to have a bit more detail about the RCA calculation (the technical details)

Response :

We added additional information to explain about RCA calculation.

• The conclusions are well thought but please review the wording as it is a bit hard to follow sometimes

Response :

Thank you for your feedback regarding the conclusions of our paper. We appreciate your comment and understand the importance of clear and coherent wording in conveying our key findings effectively. We apologize if the wording in the conclusions section sometimes made it difficult to follow.  To address this concern, we will carefully review the wording in the conclusions section and make necessary revisions to improve its clarity and readability using the proofreading software Grammarly.

• Indonesia is a rather large country but there is no information about the regional difference in the industry in the paper (sorry if I missed it). I think that it would be interesting to have some comments on this regard as I assume that there could be substantial differences.

Response : In this study, we aimed to showcase Indonesia’s ornamental fish exports. However, we will display the differences in Indonesia’s exports by province, as seen in Table 1.

 

Minor details

 

1) Some of the formulas and tables could be presented in a better way

Response : We have tried to display formulas and tables as prescribed in the journal. However, if you have any examples for improvement, we will be delighted to revise them.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has significantly improved as compared to the previous version. Indeed, the authors tried to improve it, and the main weaknesses are solved.

Thus, in my opinion, the manuscript is recommendable for publication.