Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia's Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) is collaborating with state-owned salt producer PT Garam to build a pilot project, with an industrial salt production capacity of 40 thousand tons annually.
"The project is funded through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) to build the infrastructure," Head of BPPT Hammam Riza told ANTARA here on Friday.
A PPP is a cooperative arrangement between two or more public and private sectors, chiefly used for infrastructure provision.
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Riza noted that the establishment of the integrated salt plant in Gresik, East Java, is expected to meet the national salt demand.
The BPPT has invested Rp28 billion to build the plant under the operational cooperation scheme.
"Development of the salt plant is targeted for completion by the end of this year. It will be operated in cooperation with PT Garam to evaluate its reliability from the aspects of economy, durability, and maintenance," Riza expounded.
Salt production technology is being developed to boost salt productivity and self-sufficiency in addition to improving the quality and quantity of the farmers' salt production.
Currently, domestic production is able to meet the annual demand of consumption salt of some two million tons. However, the demand of industrial salt for the domestic market has been fully met through imports, with 2.7 million tons imported in 2018.
"We call for the stakeholders' commitment to meet the demand of consumption as well as industrial salt and to increase the competitiveness of farmers' salt toward realizing self-sufficiency and reducing dependency on imported salt," he added.
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