"Around 85 to 90 percent of our coffee exports are absorbed by the US market," an official of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade of the ministry of foreign affairs, Zulfikar, said at a press conference at the Indonesian Coffee Festival here on Thursday.
In 2012 his office recorded Indonesia`s coffee exports reached 320 tons or increased by eight percent from last year.
He said the US is one of the world`s biggest potential coffee market although that country is not among the world`s biggest coffee consumers.
However "compared to other countries, the US is one of the biggest coffee consumer," he said.
Emphasizing the US potential, he said, if 200 million of around 320 million of its population drink two cups of coffee a day coffee consumption in the US would be huge.
Zulfikar said his office had pushed coffee producing centers in the country to increase their productivity because "our productivity is still low compared to that of other countries."
Productivity in Indonesia is estimated at only one tons per hectare while that of Vietnam has reached four tons, he said.
"We can catch up. We still have a lot of lands for coffee plantations," he said.
Right now coffee plantations in the country are recorded at 1.3 million hectares spreading in Aceh, North Sumatra, Lampung, West Java, Central Java, Bali, East Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi and Papua.
(Reporting by Hanni Sofia)
Editor: Ella Syafputri
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