Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Co-partner of the North Kolaka (Kolut) Cocoa Foreign Exchange Village, Rusmadi Mahmud, revealed that currently there are still many cocoa farmers who are not yet established, one of which is in Kolut. In fact, as much as 75% of chocolate production in Indonesia is produced by the island of Sulawesi.

For this reason, his party is committed to encouraging farmers to maintain production results and reach markets in Europe.

“Through collaboration with local farmers and the help of various stakeholders, hopefully farmers can fulfill their daily needs,” said Rusmadi at the 38th Trade Expo Indonesia (TEI), at the Indonesia Convention Exhibition (ICE), Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD) City, South Tangerang , Banten, Friday (20/10/2023).

According to him, this is not impossible to achieve, especially with the support of the Indonesian Export Financing Institution (LPEI) or Indonesia Eximbank, which is given the mandate to encourage exports of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) so that market access becomes wider.

The proof is, at the TEI event together with LPEI, Cikola is in the process of exploring to reach European countries, especially France, Germany and Russia.

“We are coordinating, including with trade attachés, so we can reach France, Germany and Russia,” said Rusmadi.

In the next month, Rusmadi even said he would make a second shipment of 1 ton of Cikola to Japan. The 34-year-old man said this was not an easy thing, but his party continued to market so that Cikola products could compete in Europe.

“We are participating in the Foreign Exchange Village Program from LPEI, in the future we hope that LPEI will also continue to help with the funding scheme and also achieve the targets set. Moreover, currently our machine should be able to reach 45 tons of chocolate, but has only reached a capacity of 100 kg,” explained Rusmadi.

According to Rusmadi, currently Cikola is already well known in the markets of Sulawesi and several areas of Java. In the future, not only in Europe, Rusmadi hopes that Cikola can also be enjoyed by all Indonesian people.

Together with LPEI, Rusmadi as a companion partner provided assistance until finally chocolate production was reduced to one village.

“This downstreaming has also raised the enthusiasm of farmers, since then we have also been encouraged to sell in market places, and even create our own website that reaches not only national, but also international,” concluded Rusmadi.

The Foreign Exchange Village Program itself provides a series of training and assistance to farmers through Bumdes. It is hoped that this integrated training program will be able to increase farmers’ knowledge in terms of production, management and export procedures. In this way, it is hoped that production capacity and commodity quality will increase, thereby increasing product competitiveness in the global market.

Forms of assistance are provided for institutional strengthening, assistance with export management and market access, as well as increasing production capacity and assistance with production equipment. So if it is considered bankable, it does not rule out the possibility of being able to get access to financing.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(rah/rah)