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25,000 tons of Australian salt arrives
Twenty-five thousand tons of the total 75,000 tons of salt to be imported from Australia has started arriving on Thursday at Ciwandan Port in Banten, a Trade Ministry official has announced.
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Workers pack cubes of compressed salt in plastic bags to be distributed to markets. (The Jakarta Post/Suherdjoko)
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wenty-five thousand tons of the total 75,000 tons of salt to be imported from Australia has started arriving on Thursday at Ciwandan Port in Banten.
The government has decided to split the entry of the imported salt among the three ports of Ciwandan, Tanjung Perak in Surabaya and Belawan in Medan, the head of the Trade Ministry's Directorate General for Overseas Trade, Oke Nurwan, said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, state-owned salt company PT Garam president director Dolly Parlagutan confirmed that additional shipments of imported salt from Australia would arrive at Tanjung Perak port on Friday.
Read also: Indonesia to import 75,000 tons of salt from Australia“The MV Golden Kiku vessel will arrive at Tanjung Perak port at 6.00 p.m. on Friday, carrying 27,500 tons of salt,” said Dolly.
The final vessel, the MV Uni Challenge, was scheduled to arrive at Belawan port on August 21, transporting 22,500 tons of salt.
Oke said the salt import would not impact local production, as the decision to import salt had been thoroughly studied.
“The Imports will not disturb domestic salt production and the [salt] demand will be met. This has been arranged since the beginning. That is why we imported [only] 75,000 tons, while demand stands at 100,000 tons,” he said, as quoted by kompas.com.
PT Garam, which the government has appointed as the exclusive importer of the salt, will distribute the imported salt to factories for processing into edible salt.
Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita had said earlier that the 75,000 tons of imported Australian salt would fulfil domestic demand until local salt farmers were able to produce a harvest. (mrc/bbn)
