Indonesia's agribusiness lacks integration

Indonesia is lagging far behind other Asian countries in agribusiness development, Vice President Boediono said in Jakarta on Friday (Mar 12).

"Compared with other Asian countries such as Thailand, our agribusiness sector is still at a low level of development," he said.

He said that compared with other countries, the agribusiness sector in Indonesia had yet to integrate with other sectors to support national development.

"In other countries, the agribusiness sector has become one with the industrial and service sectors; agriculture, fisheries and animal husbandry sectors have become one with the industrial and service sectors while in our country there is no inter-linkage among these sectors," he said.

But he added Indonesia had great potential and capability to catch up with the other countries.

"Our agribusiness potential is extraordinarily large, the biggest in Southeast Asia and Asia. We are the world's largest producer of palm oil, rubber, and rice. We are also the largest producer of cacao, coffee, tea, volatile oils, and fish. And all of these are the basis for our agribusiness development to catch up with other countries," Boediono said.

He said that Indonesia's poor position in the agribusiness development was caused mainly by the fact that business players prioritised short-term profits by selling agricultural goods as raw materials.