The Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) is strengthening seaweed downstreaming to produce advanced products in the form of carrageenan and agar-agar which have higher selling value. Director General of Agro Industry of the Ministry of Industry Putu Juli Ardika, met at the Siemens Tech Summit in Jakarta, Wednesday, explained that currently exports of domestic seaweed industry products are still dominated by dried seaweed which is a raw material and semi-alkali which has not provided much added value. "Currently, more of what is exported is in the form of raw materials, namely dried and semi-alkali seaweed. The direction of downstreaming is how we enter into the processing of carrageenan and agar-agar," said Putu. His party noted that product diversification through seaweed industry downstreaming helps to realize the market potential of the sector in 2030 which will reach USD 11.8 billion or IDR 119.5 trillion.
This potential can be realized through optimizing the economic added value of seaweed derivative products, such as biostimulants, bioplastics, animal feed, nutraceuticals, alternative proteins, pharmaceuticals and textiles. In order to realize the fulfillment of this market potential, the Ministry of Industry always synergizes with various ministries/institutions through program affirmations. His party also continues to encourage cooperation between the seaweed processing industry and the user industry, implement a domestic component level certification program (TKDN), and prepare a machine or equipment restructuring program for this sector. In the last 10 years, Indonesia has still dominated exports of dried seaweed for consumption and industrial raw materials. However, according to him, export sales of these products have not experienced significant growth, with a record of 66.61% of Indonesian seaweed export products dominated by dried seaweed, while processed seaweed, such as carrageenan and agar-agar, is still 33.39%.
