Rambu Energy Pathway to Indonesia’s energy and energy related industriesRelated Articles
JAKARTA (Rambu Energy) – PT Cargill Indonesia on Wednesday (Nov. 10) inaugurated its new cocoa facilities with a total investment of around US$100 million or equal to Rp1.2 trillion. The new cocoa plant will produce cocoa by-products such as cocoa powder, butter and cocoa liquor.
“Around 20-30 percent of the output will be supplied to domestic market and the rest is for export markets,” Corporate Affair Director of PT Cargill Indonesia Arief Susanto was quoted by detik.com as saying.
He said large part of the cocoa raw materials come from cocoa farmers in Sulawesi Island. Cargill, he said, has also trained the farmers so that they can produce high quality cocoa beans. As many as 4,500 cocoa farmers have taken part in the Farmer Field School in Bone and Soppeng, Sulawesi.
Industry Minister Saleh Husin said when inaugurating the cocoa plant that the government is committed to provide incentives to investors planning to invest in cocoa industry. The incentives would be in the form of lifting import duties on cocoa machines as well as imposition of export tax on cocoa raw products in order to guarantee domestic supply.
The other incentive would be on income tax reduction for companies planning to expand their cocoa plant capacity.
Director of Cargill Indonesia Arief Susanto added that the company plans to add investment around US$750 million in the next 3-5 years.
The investment funds will be used to develop cocoa processing mill in Gresik, developing Starches and Sweeteners facilities in Cikande, Serang in Banten province as well as building palm oil refinery in Serang, Banten as well as other investment in plantation, husbandry and fishery sectors (*).
