Jakarta, April 21 (Antara) - The government will make utmost efforts to boost its sugar production, meet the domestic needs, and stop the importation of the commodity.
The government will strive to increase the country's sugar production by building 10 new sugar factories in addition to the existing 60 old sugar mills to expand the acreage and to boost the productivity of sugarcane plantations.
So far, Indonesia has been importing sugar to meet its domestic needs as the local sugar mills are only able to produce some 50 percent of the country's annual requirement of some five to six million tons.
This year, the government has allocated a quota for the importation of 3.22 million tons of raw sugar to meet the needs of the country's food and beverage industry for refined sugar in 2016.
"The figure increased by five percent from that in the previous year as the need for refined sugar for the food and beverage industry increased by over eight percent per annum," Acting Director General of External Trade of the Ministry of Trade Karyanto Suprih had stated last month.
This year's import quota value for refined sugar was based on a forecast of a moderate five percent increase compared to the requirement of 2.89 million tons in 2015. So, the figure in 2016 has been set at 3.03 million tons or equivalent to 3.22 million tons of raw sugar.
The dependence on sugar imports has led the government to consider boosting the domestic production by increasing the number of factories and expanding the plantation acreage.
Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman stated that Indonesia will provide an opportunity to investors to build 10 new sugar mills.
After holding a closed-door meeting with the Indonesian Sugarcane Farmers Association (APTRI) on Monday (April 18), Minister Sulaiman noted that in order to meet the domestic sugar requirements, the government, so far, had to import the commodity from several countries, such as Thailand, Australia, and Singapore.
"With the construction of the new sugar mills, it is expected that Indonesia would no longer have to import sugar. So far, we need to import sugar as the domestic production is not adequate," stated the minister.
Sulaiman remarked that in future, his ministry will build 10 sugar mills in cooperation with investors in several provinces of the country, such as Kalimantan, Sumatra, Java, and other regions outside Java.
The minister affirmed that each of the 10 sugar mills will have a designed production capacity of 10 thousand tons cane per day, with an investment of Rp5 trillion.
The Ministry of Agriculture will be ready to facilitate investors keen on setting up a new sugar mill, with an initial funding of Rp1.5 trillion.
"Initial funds should be prepared. It should not be the case that investors have already come, but we are not yet ready with the funds," the minister cautioned.
In the past several years, the government has set a target to become self-reliant in sugar production. In an effort to achieve the target, several state-owned sugar producers (BUMNs) have also outlined a target to produce 3.26 million tons by 2019.
Coordinator of these sugar producing companies, Subiyono, who is also president director of the state plantation firm PTPN X, stated on March 18 that currently, sugar BUMNs were only able to produce some 1.445 million tons per annum, which meant they needed to increase their production significantly to meet the target of 3.26 million tons.
"The 2015 milling season is already over, and we have only produced 1.445 million tons of sugar. We are doing our best now to meet the annual production target of 3.26 million tons," Subiyono was quoted as saying by online media beritasatu.com on March 19.
In order to achieve the target, the sugar BUMNs, which have 48 sugar mills belonging to PTPN II, PTPN VII, PTPN IX, and PTPN X, in addition to PTPN XI, PTPN XII, PTPN XIV, and PT RNI, are undertaking various efforts such as converting idle land areas and restoring factory equipment, he explained.
The production capacity of sugarcane plantations, which is currently at 75 tons of sugar per hectare, will be increased to 95 tons. The sucrose content of sugarcane, which is now eight percent, will also be increased to 9.78 percent.
In a bid to achieve the 3.26 million tons of production target by 2019, the sugar BUMNs will also improve other supporting production factors, for instance, by increasing in phases the acreage of sugarcane plantation to 357,177 hectares and the sugarcane milling capacity to produce 33.23 million tons.
PTPN II and PTPN VII in Sumatra and PTPN IX and PTPN XII in Java will utilize some of the idle land areas, which were earlier rubber, coffee, tea, and palm oil plantations, to grow sugarcane.
The minister hoped that the existing sugar mills, with limited land, would optimize the use of their existing areas.
With regard to the existing sugarcane plantations, Minister Sulaiman will cooperate with the state-owned forestry company Perum Perhutani.
The agriculture ministry has, so far, communicated with Perum Perhutani; the Ministry of Environment and Forestry; the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises; and the Ministry of Agrarian and Spatial Affairs.
"Communication (with them) has been carried out. Perum Perhutani is now in the process of issuing permits. We have set a target to utilize two million hectares of land area. Of the acreage, one million hectares will be set aside for a cattle project, 500 thousand hectares for sugarcane plantations, and 500 thousand hectare for maize plantations," Minister Sulaiman revealed.
On the occasion, the minister said the government and APTRI had agreed to increase the productivity of sugarcane plantations to some 100 tons per hectare, with an estimated sucrose content of 10 percent, or what he termed as "program 110."
"In order to realize the program 110, we will provide support, including in the form of seeds. The director general for plantation will be tasked with monitoring this matter," remarked Minister Sulaiman.
The minister added that currently, one hectare of cane plantation yielded between 50 and 70 tons of sugarcane. With hybrid seeds, the productivity of the plantation is expected to increase to some 100 tons per hectare. ***3***(A014/INE/s012)EDITED BY INE
(T.A014/A/BESSR/Suharto) 21-04-2016 19:23:2 |
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