Coordinating Minister For Maritime Affairs And Fisheries Proposes That Seaweed Cultivation Could Be Prabowo's Acceleration Program

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan (Photo: dock. Antara)

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Menko Marves) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said the development of seaweed cultivation could be a program to accelerate the government of the elected president Prabowo Subianto.

"We see this as an opportunity to reduce poverty, we have reported President Jokowi, and we propose President-elect Prabowo to become an acceleration program for the upcoming government," Luhut said quoting Antara.

Luhut in the seminar to accelerate upstream to downstream integration of the seaweed industry said that seaweed downstream is being discussed to become a national strategic project, because there are many advantages behind seaweed cultivation, one of which is opening up job opportunities.

"If we make 1.2 million hectares in stages, we can employ almost 1 million people directly, not immediately how many can there be, but in my opinion this is a breakthrough that we have not paid attention to so far," he said.

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries admitted that they had received orders from President Jokowi to downstream seaweed, such as nickel, profits from seaweed only began to appear after a while.

Luhut Binsar also reported the fruits of this work to Prabowo Subianto, and he received a good response because the elected president admitted that he was committed to continuing this step.

"We will accompany this gap (enter PSN) later, which is clearly strategic, it will create millions of jobs," he said.

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs admitted that currently, the downstream seaweed has just started, but he projects that in 2033 the export value of marine cultivation will reach 19 billion US dollars.

This is because 100 hectares of land alone can employ 150 people, and currently Indonesia has mapped West Nusa Tenggara with 600,000 hectares ready to be planted with seaweed.

"So we just have to report it later, hopefully we can prepare so that this year we can also start using 600,000 hectares in NTB, we haven't counted it anywhere else," he said.