The Seaweed Cooperative of the Free Indonesian Workers' Union (Kospermindo) has exported 100 tons of seaweed to Xiamen, Fujian Province, China. Four containers of seaweed, valued at IDR 500 million, were shipped from the port of Makassar in South Sulawesi on Saturday, November 4, 2023. Arman Arfah, Chairman of Kospermindo, stated that they send over 7,000 tons of seaweed to China every month. He mentioned that the quality of Indonesian seaweed is much better than that of other countries. "We cultivate, process, and consume it ourselves. China has been using Indonesian seaweed for a long time, and they process it there, as well as Japan. Their agar-agar raw material is supplied from Indonesian seaweed," he said. According to Arman, seaweed farmers across Indonesia have been able to meet foreign export demands since 2004. Therefore, if there is an obligation to meet domestic needs, it is not a problem. However, he explained that out of the 500 types of seaweed, only four types are well-managed: teleslaria, potonik, pinosum, and lawi lae buleva.
"The most commonly sent abroad are potonik, teleslaria, and spinosum. If these three types are managed well, we can produce up to 350,000 tons, and 200,000 tons of that can be exported. This builds domestic food security," Arman stated. Meanwhile, Hongbo, the Head of Quality Control at Green Fresh and a buyer from China, explained that they receive seaweed supplies from South Sulawesi as a raw material for processing ice cream, sausages, puddings, cakes, bread, and noodles. The company has a processing plant in Situbondo, East Java, with a capacity of 1,000 tons for agar-agar processing. "We receive seaweed supplies from South Sulawesi totaling 7,000 tons per month, with very good quality seaweed," he said. Hongbo admitted that processing products from seaweed raw materials requires a significant investment. From technology to processing machines, the cost can reach CNY 2 billion or around IDR 100 billion.
