South Kalimantan's vegetable oil penetrates Malaysia, Ukraine

Banjarmasin Agricultural Quarantine official hands over a quarantine export certification or phytosanitary certificate (PC) to a representative of processed palm oil products exporting company in Batulicin, South Kalimantan. (Photo Special)

Overall, the South Kalimantan export of palm oil commodities showed a significant increasing trend. In comparison, up to the second week of February 2021, as many as 26,900 tons of vegetable oil have been exported to two countries,

Banjarbaru, S Kalimantan (ANTARA) - Vegetable oil from Kotabaru, South Kalimantan, has strengthened the export performance of Indonesia's leading commodities by penetrating two new export destination countries, Malaysia and Ukraine.

Head of the Banjarmasin Class I Agriculture Quarantine Agency (BKP) Nur Hartanto in a press release received in Banjarbaru on Monday said the Ministry of Agriculture through the agency (BKP) first facilitated the export of 26,900 tons of vegetable oil to Malaysia and Ukraine.

"Through a series of agricultural quarantine measures, we declared the commodity met the export rules and protocol of the destination counties and ready to be despatched. The export value of the processed palm oil products was Rp386.86 billion," he said.

He also said that the agricultural quarantine officials in Batulicin Port, Tanah Bumbu District, had checked the condition of the goods to be exported and declared healthy and safe, thus a quarantine export certificate or phytosanitary certificate (PC) could be issued.

According to the data on the quarantine system (IQFAST System) at the Banjarmasin quarantine agency, it was recorded that the export of vegetable oil was carried out by PT Sime Darby Oils (SDO) Kotabaru.

PT SDO in 2020 has made 19 export shipments with a total value of Rp881,98 billion to six destination countries, namely China, Vietnam, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, and Turkey.

"Overall, the South Kalimantan export of palm oil commodities showed a significant increasing trend. In comparison, up to the second week of February 2021 as many as 26,900 tons of vegetable oil have been exported to two countries," he said.

Comparing the same period in 2020 with a tally of 24,000 tons. This increase makes the south Kalimantan agriculture export performance optimistic to reach 20 percent according to the Gratieks target scheme.

Gratieks stands for Three Folds Export Movement, a program initiated by the Minister of Agriculture Syahrul Yasin Limpo. Gratieks is a promotional effort in increasing the export of agriculture products to accommodate all the interests of agricultural development actors from upstream to downstream.

Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the plantation is one of the subsectors that has a large enough contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (PDB), which is about 1.13 percent in 2020. Two leading plantation commodities are rubber and palm oil.