Indonesia should pour more investment into expanding production of gum resin by tapping more of the country's vast area of pine trees to take advantage of high market prices, an agricultural official says.
Fachrodji, the director of Perhutani, said gum resin, which was derived from pine sap and used in several pharmaceutical products, could cost up to US$1,200 per ton on international markets.
He was speaking during a meeting with his provincial and regency subordinates about the management of pine forests in Makassar recently.
The province has 70,000 hectares of pine forests.
Indonesia has 990,000 hectares of pine forests, but only 15 percent of that is being tapped, according to Fachrodji.
All 12 pine sap to gum resin processing plants in Indonesia are in Java.
"In Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, which has the biggest pine forest industry, pine trees are used only for paper and furniture," Fachrodji said.
The 15 percent - or 145,000 hectares - of the country's pine forests that are used for sap, produce 60,000 tons of gum resin per year on average, of which 80 percent is exported.
Indonesia is the world's third-biggest producer of the gum resin after China, which yields 850,000 tons per year and Brazil with 75,000 tons per year.
"China's pine forests are similar in area to those of Indonesia but our production is far below China's because we only tap a small percentage of the forests," Fachrodji said.
Data shows that international demand for gum resin is high, and that consumption is expected to increase to 1,113,000 tons this year and 1,169,000 tons next year from 1,058,000 tons last year.
"If all pines in our forests were tapped, they would yield 841,000 tons of resin per year," Fachrodji said.
An expansion of production would also create more jobs, he said, adding that the industry now employed half a million people in the country.
"We can provide jobs for as many as 3 million people. That could help ease unemployment and poverty."
