Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry through Board of Analyzing and Developing Policy held regular course of Palm Oil 2018, on November 19 to 26, 2018 in Bogor, West Java and Jambi. The course is participatedin by 15 participants from 11 countries namely Australia, the Netherlands, Czech, Hungary, England, Italy, France, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Spain. Deputy Minister of Indonesian Foreign Affairs, AM. Fachir to Voice of Indonesia in Jakarta on Monday (11/19) said that the Regular Course of Palm Oil 2018 is one of efforts of Indonesian government to explain to the international world about Indonesias commitment in keeping environment from palm oil industry that tens of millions of people depend on it.
“This is our effort to explain what we have done including our commitment on the sustainability of palm oil industry and we try to combine it with sustainable development goals (SDGs). This is related to environmental problems while in another side, it is related to the life of millions of people. According to data, there are 5.5 million people directly connected while 21 million people are indirect connected,” AM Fachir said.
Moreover, AM. Fachir also explained that 43 percent of all Indonesian palm oil fields are organized by millions of farmers. However, there are several challenges faced by Indonesian government about palm oil issue that becomes the attention of European countries such as deforestation, carbon and water issues, as well as loss of biodiversity due to land clearing of palm oil plantation. Therefore, Indonesian government invited 10 European countries from 11 participants countries to join the Regular Course of Palm Oil 2018. AM. Fachir said Indonesia is the biggest palm oil producer country in the world, since it is able to contribute 53 percent of the world palm oil needs. (VOI/VIQRAN/AHM)