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Government will Cut Down Beef Import
Jakarta - To achieve meat self-sufficiency in Indonesia, the government targets to cut down on beef import. Import of special beef is still allowed by the government, particularly for restaurants.
“In the future we want to make sure, we want to control import at a drastic level, but we still want to maintain supply for the country’s needs,” said Vice Minister of Agriculture, Bayu Krisnamurthi when met at the Ministry of Trade office on Wednesday (7/7/2010).
Bayu explained, domestic beef demand per year reaches 340,000 tons while the industry requires 65,000 tons per year. From that total figure, special beef for restaurants, such as McDonald and others, reach an average of 100 to 150 tons. ”We will find the solution for this and still maintain supply,” said Bayu.
Bayu said in the future, even if beef import reduction was implemented, the needs of restaurants could still be accommodated. This year Indonesia has imported up to 56,000 tons of beef from January to June.
“Annual import of special beef for restaurants is only around 1,000 tons. The portion is very small,” he said.
The government will try to improve distribution connectivity between beef production areas and beef consumer areas to support import-reducing efforts. For example, Central Java as a beef production area and Jakarta as a beef consumer area. (hen/dnl)
Source : detik.com