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Indonesia needs 15 new factories to achieve sugar self-sufficiency: Minister
The Agriculture Ministry is pushing forward with its ambitious plans for Indonesia to achieve self-sufficiency in sugar production by 2024.
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A farmer worker loads freshly harvested sugarcane onto a truck during this year's harvest season in Purwosekar village in Malang, East Java. The Agriculture Ministry has said that up to 15 new sugar factories were needed for Indonesia to achieve self-sufficency in sugar production. (JP/Aman Rochman)
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ndonesia needs to build up to 15 new sugar factories in the next five years to meet the demand for refined sugar for the domestic food and beverage industry, the agriculture minister said during a recent visit to a sugar factory in Blitar, East Java.
“We have to build 10 to 15 new sugar factories in the next five years. If this is realized, we will achieve self-sufficiency in sugar production,” Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman told reporters on Oct. 9 in Blitar.
He said that increasing domestic sugar production was an important government program, with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo urging the private sector to build 10 new sugar factories during his first term in office.
“Alhamdulillah [Praise be to God], the plan to build 10 factories has been realized. We could previously produce only 2.5 million tons of sugar and were short 300,000 to 500,000 tons. The new factories will produce an additional 1 million tons,” said Amran.
The 10 new sugar factories are located in East Java, South Sumatra, Southeast Sulawesi East Nusa Tenggara and other provinces. The ministry has set an ambitious target to produce 3.8 million tons of sugar in 2020 with the operation of the 10 new factories, a 72.73 percent increase from about 2.2 million tons this year.
The new sugar factory in Blitar required Rp 3 trillion (US$212.59 million) in investment to build. It is the first in the region and belongs to PT Rejoso Manis Indo (RMI).
RMI said that the factory had a production capacity of 10,000 tons of cane per day (TCD) and could double its grinding capacity to a maximum 20,000 TCD.
