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East Nusa Tenggara invites investors to develop seaweed industry
East Nusa Tenggara is inviting businesspeople to build factories for processing seaweed, of which the province has abundant resources to supply the food industry.
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This raw seaweed was cultivated in East Nusa Tenggara. (Antara/Akbar Tado)
E
ast Nusa Tenggara is inviting businesspeople to build factories to process seaweed, of which the province has enough resources to supply the food industry.
East Nusa Tenggara Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Agency head Ganef Wurgiyanto said in the provincial capital of Kupang on Tuesday that the province already had three seaweed-processing plants, namely in Kupang, Sumba Timur and Sabu Raijua.
The factories process edible seaweed into chips. “The end products are dried seaweed chips, which are ready to be distributed to the market,” he said, as reported by news agency Antara
He claimed the raw material of the seaweed for the three factories was cultivated on some 51,000 hectares of the sea that produced seaweed of very high quality due to the balance of rainfall and sunshine.
Ganef said there were many other locations in the province, such as Rote Ndao, Alor, Lembata, Flores Timur, Sikka, Sumba Timur and West Manggarai, that had great potential to be developed into seaweed cultivation areas.
"We encourage investors to develop seaweed-processing factories in those areas,” he said, adding that the seaweed cultivation should be followed up by the development of processing factories to help absorb the commodity produced by the farmers.
He said he believed seaweed had great market potential, both in the province and across the country. (bbn)
