Jokowi Asks To Downstream Coconut Waste Into Bioenergy And Bioavtur

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) at the opening of the 51st COCOTECH International Conference and Exhibition in Surabaya, East Java, Monday (22/7/2024). (ANTARA/Astrid Faidlatul Habibah)

JAKARTA - President Ri Joko Widodo (Jokowi) asked for downstreaming of coconut commodities by processing their waste into bioenergy and bioavtur in order to provide added value for the green economy. “ I see a lot of coconut waste now becoming bioenergy. This is important, I think in the future, this can continue to be developed. Then coconut can also be bioavtur, ” said President Jokowi at the 51st Cocotech Conference in Surabaya, East Java, Antara, Monday, July 22. President Jokowi said the downstream process could take advantage of technological advances so that the products produced are in accordance with market standards so that they are in demand by many countries in the world. Indonesia is the second producer of coconut commodities in the world after the Philippines with a coconut area of 3.8 million hectares and production reaches 2.8 million tons per year and the export value reaches 1.55 billion US dollars. "This is very important for Indonesia as the second largest coconut producer in the world," he said. Meanwhile, the Director General of International Trade Negotiations of the Ministry of Trade, Djatmiko Bris Witjaksono, said that downstreaming of processing coconut commodity waste into bioenergy and bioavtur is a smart project. Djatmiko explained that coconut production which reaches 2.8 million tons per year has multifunctions and has been mapped by the government so that downstreaming of coconut commodities will not focus on producing just one use such as for bioavtur. He continued, the plan to downstream coconut commodity waste into bioavtur is still in the piloting stage, such as determining the best composition and paying attention to its economic potential.

“There is an attempt to get there to use coconut as an alternative to bioavtur. But we also see that there are other sources of plant that have the potential to become bioavtur. We'll see from the economic side what it looks like,“ said Djatmiko.