The 266 oil palm companies are part of the 535 palm oil companies that applied for audit to the certification body, according to the Plantations Affairs Director General of Agriculture Ministry, Bambang, here on Tuesday.
"Around 1.6 thousand oil palm companies are operating in Indonesia," he stated, while handing over the ISPO certificates at the International Conference on Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (IC-ISPO) 2017 at the JCC building.
The oil palm plantation area currently covers 11.3 million hectares, while the land area, which already meets the requirements of ISPO, covers 1.4 million hectares.
Bambang further noted that the ISPO standards set in the Minister of Agriculture No. 11/2015 on the ISPO accommodates the government regulations ranging from the legality of land to waste handling, including the welfare of employees.
Meanwhile, chairman of the ISPO Secretariat, Aziz Hidayat, stated that ISPO is aimed at covering all steps desired internationally to encourage plantations business to comply with government regulations, increase the awareness of oil palm companies to improve the environment, and implement sustainable oil palm plantations to improve competitiveness.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2017
