Farmers harvest salt in a salt cupola house in the villages of Tanjakan, Krangkeng, Indramayu, West Java, Indonesia (Source: antaranews)Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia sets a target of importing 3.7 milliontonnes of industrial salt this year to meet the growing demand frompetrochemical, pharmaceutical, glass, and food and beverage producers, said CoordinatingMinister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution.
Salt used for industries need meet strict requirements onquality. Therefore, several industries can not use local salt due to lower NaClcontent.
The country is developing 40,000 hectares of new salt farmsin the eastern region and making more efforts to improve domestic saltprocessing to reach its goal of stopping salt import by 2020.
Indonesia consumed around 4.2 million tonnes of salt lastyear, both for industry operation and public consumption, according to theIndonesian Salt-Using Industries Association (AIPGI).
The government has been developing new salt farms in thepast few years, with state-owned salt producer Garam currently runningproduction from around 400 hectares.
Indonesia imports salt from Australia, India and Germany.-VNA
VNA
