Author(s): Wahyu Sulistyowati, Mimit Primyastanto
Global trade era almost eliminates geographic boundaries, especially after the establishment of series of free trade agreement, such as ACFTA, AFTA, and AEC. Such a situation can be either opportunity or threat to the Small Medium Enterprise-Fish Processors (SMEFP). The objective of the study was to study the fulfilment effect of legal requirements, the product quality, the institutional coordination, human resources, and the fulfilment of market requirements: SMEFP certification on the competitiveness of the SMEFP product in the regional markets. This quantitative study was conducted in 10 cities in east Java district using survey and interviews with 126 units of SMEFPs. Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis revealed that legal requirements, product quality, and human resources, through market requirements: certification, highly significantly influenced the product competitiveness of the SMEFP in the regional market of ASEAN (p ≤ 0.01). Regulation had directly significant effect on the product competitiveness as well (p ≤ 0.05).