"We`ll develop salt industries to achieve self-sufficiency in salt by 2014," Fadel Muhammad said here Monday.
Muhammad expressed disappointment over the fact that only a few salt-making enterprises were left in the country so that Indonesia now had to import the commodity from other countries, including India and Australia.
Indonesia currently imports approximately 1.6 million tons of salt per year.
Fadel said he had discussed the matter with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and proposed stricter controls over salt imports and increasing the price of salt at the farmers` level.
People`s salt production development was one of the ministry`s priority programs for 2011, he added, of which the ministry has allocated a budget to be distributed to 40 regencies in 10 provinces for preparing new salt-producing ponds of some 32,000 hectares.
The salt-producing ponds are to be constructed in the provinces of West Java, Central Java, East Java, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Central Sulawesi and South Sulawesi and Gorontalo.
Muhammad said that salt-producing ponds in Indonesia currently has a productivity rate of only some 60-70 tons per hectare per year, lower than those of India?s and Australia?s.
Indonesia has been importing salt in the recent years as domestic production capacity can only supply up to 55 percent of the national demand per year.
(Uu.KR-VFT/HAJM/F001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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