Abundant Rattan Production, But Industry Supply Scarcity

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki held a coordination meeting across ministries, local governments, industry and farmers to encourage the export of furniture made from rattan. During the meeting it was revealed that there were problems in the rattan trading system.

At the upstream level, rattan production is abundant, but in the downstream or rattan industry, raw materials are scarce. "This means that there is a missing link because production is abundant in the upstream area while the furniture industry lacks raw materials," said Teten in a statement received, Monday, March 2.

Present representatives from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Director General of Customs and Excise, Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Trade, Local Government, rattan producers, furniture entrepreneurs associations, rattan farmers, among others, from South Kalimantan and Sulawesi.

According to Teten, as a result of the abundant production of rattan, there is a smuggling of 10 thousand tons per month. Therefore, he emphasized that there are problems in the rattan trading system that must be resolved immediately.

"There is an anomaly, the industry cannot absorb all of the half-finished rattan production, only about 30 percent. There are policies in the upstream and downstream areas that are not right. In the upstream, the price is cheap because production is abundant while the downstream is expensive due to scarcity of supply," said Teten. .

He stated that he had asked the government agencies, businessmen and farmers from rattan-producing areas to immediately produce valid data so that the most appropriate policies could be made for the short and long term. He emphasized that farmers and rattan processors as well as the furniture industry must develop together so that rattan becomes a profitable commodity.

"We have to detail the data again so that we can make the right policies that are beneficial for both parties, for the furniture industry and in the upstream area, too," said Teten.

He emphasized that rattan should be a superior production because Indonesia is the world's largest rattan producer. However, the fact is that other countries are quite large exporters of rattan-based furniture products.

Deputy for Production and Marketing of the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, Victoria Simanungkalit, added that the absorption of raw materials is low because the rattan industry cannot absorb all types of rattan production. According to him, there are certain types of rattan that cannot be absorbed by the industry.

The matter of production data which is then asked by the Minister must be conveyed as soon as possible so that policy making on the rattan trading system can be decided.