InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Palm oil exports significantly play the role to trade balance in Indonesia. In 2021 -2022 the exports got highly numbers up to US$ 33,2 billion. The downstream sectors contributed US$ 39,07 billion,” Executive Director of Indonesian Palm Oil Association (IPOA), Mukti Sardjono said in an event that InfoSAWIT attended by the midst of September 2023 in Medan.

He also mentioned, in the past four years, CPO production was stagnant while the domestic consumption consistently ran particularly because of biodiesel mandatory change.

Data from IPOA showed that by June 2023, both production, consumption and exports in 2023 got higher than it in the same period of 2023

“July exports increased though in the past five years they tended to decrease while domestic needs kept increasing. If they do, the needs would escalate and in the long term, the supply should do,” Mukti said.

In the past years, he continued, export volume tended to decrease, for instance, in 2018, ratio exports reached 77% of the production while in 2020 to 2022, ratio export decreased about 66% of the production.

To get the increasing production by implementing smallholders replanting program is not maximal yet because it reached only 25%. “For there is no expansion, the production stagnant,” Mukti said.  (T2)