Pemerintah Bakal Stop Export Kelapa Roundut Utuh Ke Luar Negeri

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government plans to stop the export of whole round coconut abroad. This step is part of a major strategy of downstreaming the plantation sector so that the added value of commodities remains domestic.

Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman said the government would encourage domestic coconut processing to become derivative products such as coconut millik and virgin coconut oil (VCO).

"Then our plan is downstream, this coconut is not sold logs abroad. The total value, the total volume is 2.8 million tons. Then we downstream it later from coconut to coconut so this is VCO," he said in a press conference quoted from the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Thursday, October 9.

With downstreaming, continued Amran, the value of the coconut economy could increase hundreds of times to reach Rp2,400 trillion. This amount is much greater than the exports of whole round coconut which reached Rp24 trillion.

The price can increase 100 times. If it's 100 times, we just calculate the average, it can generate Rp2,400 trillion. Say half of the 50 (fold the additional value) produces Rp1,200 trillion foreign exchange. That's just coconut," he said.

Apart from coconut, Amran said the government is also preparing downstream for other commodities, such as gambir. Indonesia is known to supply 80 percent of the world's gambir needs that can be used for various industries, ranging from ink to basic shampoo materials.

Amran emphasized that this step is part of the government's grand plan to make Indonesia a center for processing world agricultural raw materials.

Our dreams are all raw materials that we export around the world, including CPO, we downstream. Especially those controlled by the government, palm oil is controlled by the government, we downstream. From FFB (fresh fruit sign) to biofuels, cooking oil, margarine or butter. Edit value must be in Indonesia," he explained.