"The plantation sector has expanded rapidly in Riau."
Pekanbaru (ANTARA News) - Riau contributed 33.4 percent to the state revenue in crude palm oil (CPO) export tax, Governor of the province H.M. Rusli Zainal said.

Based on data at the Fiscal Policy Body of the Finance Ministry, the state revenues in CPO export tax totaled Rp28.9 trillion so far this year and Riau alone contributed Rp9.55 trillion, he said in a statement read by head of the regional plantation office Zulher when opening a workshop on plantation here on Thursday.

Riau also contributes tax revenue from the exports of other primary commodities like coconut, rubber, sago, cacao, etc, he said.

The workshop was attended by 150 participants including 80 farmers, 30 members of the association of palm oil companies (Gapki) and regional officials of the plantation office.

Riau, based on official statistics in 2011, had 3.4 million hectares of plantations mainly oil palm plantations which totaled 2.26 million hectares.

Rusli said plantations are Riau`s main economic backbone providing the livelihood for 980,605 farm families.

Assuming that a family consists of 4 people, around 3.922 million people or 70 percent of the population of Riau live from the plantation sector, he said.

Riau has a population of about 5.5 million.

"The plantation sector has expanded rapidly in Riau marked with a strong growth of the Gross Regional Domestic Product (PDRB)," Rusli said.

The annual PDRB growth, which averages 24.95 percent annually in the past five years was encouraging and should be maintained amid the sharp global competition, he said.

He said the fact that Riau has been chosen among a number of regions including North Sumatra and East Kalimantan to have industrial cluster for downstream palm oil industry was an evidence that the central government had paid a special attention to the province.

He said many large companies have built oil palm plantations in the province.

Plantations producing other commodities are still dominated by small estates or farms.
(Uu.AS/H-ASG/B003)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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