TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Faiz Achmad, director for tobacco and beverages industries at the Industry Ministry, said Indonesia’s coffee industry still has a great prospect because, as the world’s third largest coffee producer, Indonesia has plantation areas of 1.24 million hectares, 933 hectares for Robusta coffee and 307 hectares for Arabica coffee.
“From those plantation areas, Indonesia’s coffee productivity has reached around 1,549 coffee beans per hectare per year,” said Faiz on Wednesday.
Faiz said national coffee development still needs to be improved as Indonesia’s coffee industry can only absorb around 35 percent domestic production while the rest 65 percent is still exported in the form of beans.
However, Faiz said coffee is flagship export commodity and the country’s fourth largest foreign exchange earner after oil palm, rubber and cocoa.
“Foreign exchange from exporting coffee is more than US$1.4 billion and can absorb workers more than 1.89 heads of families,” he said.
Indonesia’s coffee industries are mostly processed as food and drinks due to limited production tools and human resources.
Faiz hoped coffee industries in the future can develop their products to more than just drinks. “I hope coffee industries can expand their production to cosmetics, medicine and others,” he said.
