Raw sugar consumption in Indonesia's food and beverage industries will climb by 10 percent annually for the next five years, an industry group said on Monday, as the country's booming population boosts domestic demand. This year, industry's sugar use in Southeast Asia's largest consumer of the sweetener will be 2.5 million tonnes, up 19 percent from 2011, Adhi Lukman, chairman of the Indonesian Food and Beverage Industries Association (GAPMMI), told Reuters.
Overall consumption in the country with the world's largest Muslim population will rise 4 percent to 5.2 million tonnes this year, with household and direct usage at 2.7 million tonnes, Lukman added. Domestic sugar output will be flat at 2.2 million tonnes this year, meeting just half the country's needs, with the shortfall likely to be filled by imports from Thailand, Brazil or Australia, he said.
"The government predicts 2.2 million tonnes. They see in the fields that some sugarcane is not growing well because the weather is too dry," he said, referring to the domestic sugar harvest, which usually runs from May until October. Dry weather in Indonesia has already prompted cuts this month in forecasts of annual production made by rubber, cocoa and rice groups.
Indonesia was once the world's second-largest exporter of sugar in the 1930s, but ageing mills, a vast network of smallholders and an influx of cheaper imported sugar have squeezed domestic production. Lukman urged the government to open up more land for sugar plantations and improve infrastructure because it is currently cheaper for the industry to import raw sugar.
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