Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo visits a swallow's nest processing house in Surabaya, East Java, on March 12, 2021.
Indonesia should seize the opportunity to meet the overseas demands for swallow's nests since the export market share of swallow's nests is still wide open, Limpo noted in a statement here on Saturday.
"The focus of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Trade as well as our countries' representatives there is to encourage swallow's nest exports to China. There is no quota, as long as we are able to meet the requirements. The market is still wide open, and we are capable of producing it," Limpo noted.
The minister paid a visit to a swallow's nest processing facility in Surabaya, East Java, to witness up-close the production process.
Limpo has planned to visit China to forge special cooperation to increase the commodity’s exports to the East Asian country.
"Our swallow's nests are in high demand across the world. I will visit China after this pandemic to boost our exports," he affirmed.
In East Java, on Friday (Mar 12), the minister saw off shipments of 494 kilograms of swallow's nests valued at Rp9.9 billion to China, and 33 other agricultural commodities, worth Rp140.3 billion, to 12 countries.
East Java Province has 84 registered swallow houses and nine swallows’ nest processing houses.
In 2020, the province exports 245.3 tons of swallow's nests worth Rp3.5 trillion.
Some 26 percent of the swallow's nest exports went to China, and the rest to other countries, including Australia, the United States, Hong Kong, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
From January to early March this year, East Java's swallow nest exports reached 51.3 tons, valued Rp661.3 billion.
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