Indonesia's Sugar Indudtry Far Lagging Behind Facing AEC

Yogyakarta (Antara) - Indonesia's sugar industry would face tough competition in 2015 when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is implemented, the Indonesian Association of Sugar Experts said. "Indonesia is still lagging far behind Thailand in the development of sugar industry," association chairman Subiyono said here on Friday. Thailand has been a major sugar exporter in the world, while Indonesia still relies on imports to meet its requirement, Subiyono said on the sideline of a seminar on sugarcane-based industry, at the Plantation Education Institute of Yogyakarta. He said Thailand already has a capacity to produce 10.61 million tons of sugar a year as against Indonesia's production of only 2.55 million tons. "Thailand exports an average of 8 million tons of sugar to various countries including to Indonesia," he said. He said import an average of 400,000 tons of sugar per year to meet its annual consumption of 3 million tons "Ironically, Indonesia has largest number of sugar factories than Thailand," he said. Indonesia has 62 units of sugar factories as against Thailand's 50 units, he said. The 50 units of Thai factories have a total production capacity of 940,000 TCD (ton of sugarcane per day) as against the total production capacity of 205,000 TCD of the country's 62 factories. The sucrose content of sugarcane in Thailand is 11.82 percent as against 7.18 percent of Indonesia's sugarcane. "Thailand also has larger sugarcane plantations totaling 1.35 million hectares as against Indonesia's 469,000 hectares mostly in Java," he said. (*)