The figure increased by five percent from that in the previous year as the need for refined sugar for the food and beverage industries increased by over eight percent per annum.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian government has allocated a quota for the importation of 3.22 million tons of raw sugar to meet the needs of the countys food and beverage industry for refined sugar in 2016.

"The figure increased by five percent from that in the previous year as the need for refined sugar for the food and beverage industries increased by over eight percent per annum," Acting Director General of External Trade of the Ministry of Trade Karyanto Suprih stated in Jakarta Friday.

The figure for refined sugar in 2016 was based on a moderate five percent increase prediction from the need in 2015 which was 2.89 million tons. So, the figure in 2016 has been set at 3.03 million tons or equivalent of 3.22 million tons of raw sugar.

The trade ministry will soon issue a permit for the importation of 968,143 tons of raw sugar for the second quarter (April-June) of 2016 to cater to the needs of the domestic refined sugar industry.

"It has been signed and will be issued on Monday (March 21)," Karyanto Suprih stated.

The license to import raw sugar, amounting to 968,143 tons, is to be issued based on the recommendation of the Ministry of Industry, Karyanto noted.

The volume is not different from that issued for the first quarter from January to March 2016.

Last year, in total, the government allowed the importation of 3.55 million tons of raw sugar of which 2.96 million tons were imported. The total import allocation in 2015 was lower than the allocation in 2014 which was 3.56 million tons with a realization of 3.14 million tons.

Until mid-November last year, the countrys imports of raw sugar reached 3.1 million tons, equivalent to 2.92 million tons of double refined sugar, Trade Minister Thomas Lembong said.

The raw sugar is used to feed producers of double refined sugar, which is needed by the food and beverage processing industries. Thomas said the imports were smaller than import quota of 3.13 million tons or equivalent to 2.94 million tons of double refined sugar set in December 2014.

The trade ministry coordinates with other related ministries the process of issuing import licenses, and when it concerns a strategic decision the license is issued after being discussed at a meeting headed by the Coordinating Minister for Economy.

In 2014, the need for raw sugar was recorded at 2.92 million tons for the production of refined crystal sugar of 2.76 million tons. The need was adjusted to the growth of food and beverage industries which grew at an average of over eight percent from 2011 to 2014.

In the past several years, the government has actually set a target to become self-reliant in sugar production to feed its own domestic needs.

In an effort to reach this target, a number of state-owned sugar producers (BUMN) also set themselves the target of producing 3.26 million tons by 2019. Coordinator of these sugar producing companies, Subiyono, who is also the president director of state plantation firm PTPN X, said Friday (March 18) that currently sugar BUMNs are only able to produce some 1.445 million tons per annum, meaning that they have to increase their production significantly to meet the target of 3.26 million tons.

"The 2015 milling season is already finished and we only have 1.445 million tons of sugar produced. We are doing our best now to meet the annual production target of 3.26 million tons," Subiyono was quoted as saying by online media beritasatu.com on Saturday.

In order to meet the target, the sugar BUMNs which have 48 sugar mills belonging to PTPN II, PTPN VII, PTPN IX, and PTPN X, in addition to PTPN XI, PTPN XII, PTPN XIV and PT RNI, are making various efforts such as converting idle lands and rejuvenating factory machineries, he said.

The production capacity of cane sugar plantations, which now produce 75 tons of sugar per hectare, will be increased to reach production of 95 percent. The sucrose content of sugar cane, which is now eight percent, will also be increased to 9.78 percent.

With the 3.26 million tons of production target by 2019, the sugar BUMNs will also develop other supporting production factors, for example, increasing phase by phase the acreage of cane sugar plantation to 357,177 hectares and the milling sugar cane production to 33.23 million tons.

Some of the idle land conversion will come from old rubber, coffee, tea and oil palm plantation areas. They will be planted with sugar cane. This will be carried out by PTPN II and PTPN VII in Sumatra and PTPN IX and PTPN XII in Java.(*)

Reporter: Andi Abdussalam
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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