Indonesia sets a target of importing 3.7 million tonnes of industrial salt this year to meet the growing demand from petrochemical, pharmaceutical, glass, and food and beverage producers, said Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution.
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Farmers harvest salt in a salt cupola house in the villages of Tanjakan, Krangkeng, Indramayu, West Java, Indonesia |
Salt used for industries need meet strict requirements on quality. Therefore, several industries can not use local salt due to lower NaCl content.
The country is developing 40,000 hectares of new salt farms in the eastern region and making more efforts to improve domestic salt processing to reach its goal of stopping salt import by 2020.
Indonesia consumed around 4.2 million tonnes of salt last year, both for industry operation and public consumption, according to the Indonesian Salt-Using Industries Association (AIPGI).
The government has been developing new salt farms in the past few years, with state-owned salt producer Garam currently running production from around 400 hectares.
Indonesia imports salt from Australia, India and Germany./.