Indonesia Expects To Process 70 Pct Of CPO At Home

Jakarta, Jan 31 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian government hopes 70 percent of its crude palm oil production could be processed at home. "The target is 65 to 70 percent of production could be processed at home this year," the director general of agro-industry, Benny Wachjudi, said here on Thursday. He said investment in the CPO processing industry has kept coming to increase refinery capacity. "Several years ago the refinery capacity only reached 50 percent but now it has jumped to 75-80 percent," he said. He meanwhile said that Indonesia would consistently implement a progressive export tax system for plantation commodities to encourage development of downstream industries. He said following the implementation of the system development of CPO downstream industries has risen and exports of CPO products have also increased unlike in Malaysia where its refinery capacity has dropped to between 30 and 40 percent only. In 2011 Indonesia`s exports of CPO derivative products were recorded at 9,026 tons while CPO at 7,646 tons but in 2012 they respectively rose to 10,964 tons and 5,592 tons, he said.