JAKARTA - The government is targeting a potential of IDR 60 trillion from the provision of food for pilgrims and Umrah from Indonesia while worshiping in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Indonesia can take advantage of this huge economic potential.
Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs Zulkifli Hasan said the government had formed a Working Group (Pokja) of the Hajj and Umrah Food Ecosystems to attract potential money from the business.
"Our food has 221,000 pilgrims, then there are 1.7 (million) Umrah pilgrims, it's huge. That's a value of IDR 5 to IDR 60 trillion, just food," he said at a press conference at the Coordinating Ministry for Food, Jakarta, Wednesday, December 3.
Currently, he said, most of the food for Hajj and Umrah pilgrims from Indonesia is supplied by other countries around Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the government took over part of the food supply gradually.
The man who is familiarly called Zulhas said that with this step, the large portion of the budget for the consumption supply of the congregation could be reduced. Slowly it will also affect the total travel costs for the pilgrimage and Umrah.
At least if our food costs can be lower, this will certainly benefit the pilgrims the costs can be lowered. At least the cost of Hajj also does not increase, maybe it can go down," he said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Hajj and Umrah Mochamad Irfan Yusuf alias Gus Irfan said the government is also trying to increase the use of Indonesian native products. This step is taken to target the circulation of money from the food supply business.
"As we know, our Hajj financial turnover is almost Rp. 20 trillion, the Umrah financial turnover is around Rp. 40 trillion," said Gus Irfan.
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Therefore, he said, President Prabowo Subianto hopes that the large circulation of money can be directly benefited by the Indonesian people by participating in supplying food for the congregation.
"We from the Ministry of Hajj coordinate with the Coordinating Minister for Food and other stakeholders, think about at least the foods consumed by our Hajj pilgrims and later our Umrah pilgrims can be supplied from Indonesia," he explained.
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