RI Still Facing Shortage of Food Standardization Laboratories

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - As it strives to meet the 2015 ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) targets, Indonesia continues to face a shortage of food standardization laboratories necessary for the successful implementation of the AEC's food standardization plan, according to a businessman.
        
"We still have a lot to do, including having more food standardization laboratories that are accredited at the ASEAN level," General Chairman of the Indonesian Food and Beverage Business Association (Gapmmi) Adhi S Lukman said here on Wednesday.
        
He said there were 66 accredited food laboratories in Indonesia, but "the numbers are not enough because ideally each district in the country must have such a laboratory".
        
"Indonesia has 500 districts across 33 provinces. Each district should ideally have one laboratory. In order to meet the requirements of the AEC, we need to first increase the standardization of some of our commodities, such as candies, bakeries, chocolates and cereals. Other commodities should follow after that," Adhi stated.
        
He said the country's major players in the food and beverage industry were ready to follow the AEC's standardization plan.

However, Adhi added, smaller industries might not be ready yet for producing export-quality products. "Some 60 percent of the country's F&B industry is ready to implement the AEC standardization plan. But the problem is that there are about 1 million smaller players whose products are not yet ready to meet the ASEAN standardization requirements," he explained.(*/M038)