InfoSAWIT, PONTIANAK – West Kalimantan Province showed its success to develop palm oil plantations that delivered economic profits and solved social and economic issues in the province.

In a coordination meeting about palm oil profit sharing advantage in the province, Governor of Kalimantan in duty, Harisson said that it is important to realize sustainable principles to develop palm oil plantations according to the regulations in international scale.

"That is why palm oil as one commodity export has something to do with the regulation in international scale that obliges sustainable principles as the basic in its development including in West Kalimantan Province,” he said, as quoted from InfoPublik.

The government launched Government’s Regulation Number 38 / 2023 about Sustainable Palm Oil Profit Sharing and the Regulation of Minister of Finance Number 91 / 2023 about Sustainable Palm Oil Profit Sharing Management. In this case 80% of palm oil profit sharing would be allocated to infrastructures and way development and services; while 20% would be allocated for others, such as, to get data about smallholders’ plantations, arrangement of Sustainable Palm Oil Regional Action Plan, and forest and area rehabilitation. One important aspect from palm oil profit sharing is to get social protection for workers in the plantations if they are not registered as participants of Social Insurance Program, as it is regulated.

Many positively supported the approach, including Director of Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial (BPJS) Labor, Zainudin. He told that many workers in palm oil plantations are not protected by Labor - Social Insurance Program. To escalate the social protection, his institutions is in cooperation with the governments and other stakeholders to cover informal, micro, and small business workers including smallholders and freelancers.

Data showed that of 1,6 million workers in West Kalimantan, about 202 thousand of them work in palm oil sectors. Though some of them who work at companies have been protected, but some in informal sectors need protection. This is the same with President’s Instruction Number 2 about Social Protection Optimization and President’s Instruction Number 4 about Extreme Poverty Prevention.

"Our next targets are parts of President’s Instruction Number 2 and President’s Instruction Number 4,” Zainudin said. (T2)