Indonesia exports various processed food products to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with a total value of US$453,000. There are 22 processed food products exported under the Helda's Snack brand produced by PT Safeline Indonesia.
The food products consist of spicy jengkol, original rengginang, savory rengginang, fried tempeh, lime leaf tempeh, balado sticks, bandung beans, bali beans, kepri bali beans, salted bali beans, sweet bali beans, atomic oven, field peanuts, sucro beans. , emping, spicy peanuts, savory fried garlic, fried shallots, caramel popcorn, a piece of lime leaf, and a spicy seblak.
The delivery of MSME processed food products is carried out in stages to Saudi Arabia. The release of the first export was carried out directly by the Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan on Friday (10/2/2023) yesterday.
According to Zulhas, his nickname, the food exports are a follow-up to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) entered into between business actors in the two countries in holding the 37th Trade Expo Indonesia on 20 October 2022.
"I hope that the current export of MSME products to Jeddah will be a real step in increasing the value of Indonesia's commodity exports to Saudi Arabia," he said as quoted in a written statement, Sunday (12/2/2023).
The 22 processed food products that were exported, said Zulhas, had been registered with the Saudi Food and Drug Authority.
He added, to become a successful exporter, it is necessary to improve many aspects, including improving product quality and quality, increasing added value and competitiveness, as well as developing human resources.
"MSMEs that have succeeded in exporting today are MSMEs that have gone through several of these stages. This proves that anyone can export, including MSMEs," he said.
Meanwhile, Director General of National Export Development Didi Sumedi said Saudi Arabia was one of the important countries for Indonesia in opening new market access in non-traditional countries, especially the Middle East region.
Indonesia's export value for processed food products to Saudi Arabia in 2022 will experience positive growth of more than 40 percent with the main export products including processed fish, sauces and their preparations, various biscuits, soy sauce and processed pasta.
"Processed food products are an excellent export commodity for Indonesia, including Saudi Arabia," said Didi.
The total trade between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia in 2022 will reach US$7.51 billion. The trend of trade between the two countries continues to show improvement with Indonesia's non-oil and gas exports valued at 2.01 billion US dollars and imports valued at 11.3 million US dollars.
