Still Supplied With Imports, ID FOOD Boss Reveals Challenges To Meet Industrial Salt And Sugar Needs Consumption

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - ID FOOD President Director Frans Marganda Tambunan said the need for industrial salt and consumption sugar is still supplied from abroad or imported.

This is because domestic production has not been able to meet needs.

Frans said that domestic industries need a lot of salt supply.

Especially in the food and beverage, mining or mining sectors to fertilizers. Meanwhile, domestic supplies are insufficient.

Therefore, continued Frans, the capacity of the salt processing plant for food and drinks in the country continues to be increased, currently the capacity is 57,000 tons per year. Even so, Frans admitted that there is still a long distance between needs and production.

"We continue to increase it because there are still many gaps. Currently, we import approximately 3,000,000 tons every year," said Frans at the Ministry of SOEs, Jakarta, Tuesday, October 10.

Not only industrial salt, Frans said the same obstacle also occurred for consumption sugar. He said, there are still around 1 million tons supplied from imports.

"So now we focus on consumption and even that there is still a gap of approximately 800,000 to 1,000,000 every year that we have to import from abroad. Where usually 1,000,000 is divided by 800,000 in the form of raw sugar, then 250,000 to 500,000 in the form of white crystal sugar," he said.

Furthermore, Frans said that his party together with PTPN received a stabilization assignment from the government of as much as 500,000 tons of white crystal sugar equivalent.

"The total stabilization assignment is 500,000 equivalent to white crystal sugar, so if it is equivalent to GKP, it means 90 percent. What we have carried out is approximately 107,000 realizations, so we will continue to wait for the government's decision to import us this year," he said.

Frans said that the import of compost sugar is now faced with the challenge of finding a supplier country. The reason is, India has decided to close exports until the first semester of 2024.

"Well, the challenge is that it's not like it used to be when we wanted to import supply countries that were quite available. We both know that India has decided not to export sugar until the first semester of next year," he said.

Meanwhile, continued Frans, Thailand does not have enough stock. Therefore, according to him, the market is the most likely from Brazil.

Thailand is the same. So what allows us this year for the provision is probably from Brazil," he explained.

Not only faced with the difficulty of finding a supplier country, but Frans also said that currently the sugar milling season is over.

Meanwhile, Indonesia will face the National Religious Holiday (HBKN) in early April 2024. Therefore, it will pursue the target of fulfilling supply.

"So we are also pushing for the stabilization decision that we get as soon as possible, coincidentally this sugar milling season will end soon. Usually, when the sugar milling season ends, the price goes up and especially we have to anticipate the preparation of the Eid fasting HBKN which next year comes sooner in early April," he explained.