Jakarta, March 9: Indonesia's government has urged its people to trim sugar consumption to save the country precious foreign exchange amid a severe currency crisis, a Sugar Council official said on Monday.But, it could prove an uphill battle as sweet-toothed Indonesians consume large amounts of sugar in snacks and drinks such as coffee and tea. The country of 200 million people mostly imports sugar from Thailand.
"It is time we tighten our belts. Our economy is in bad shape and in this kind of situation we have to calculate even a single cent we are going to spend," said Soetojo, a secretary of the Sugar Council in charge of daily operations.
The Sugar Council is under the Directorate-General of Plantations of Indonesia's agriculture ministry.
"I believe we can lower sugar consumption like in India or China, for example. My point is that even if this year's domestic sugar production has to fall, we don't have to import," Soetojo told Reuters in an interview.Indonesia imports in excess of $400 millionworth of sugar annually. It was unclear whether the government would take even more concrete steps to reduce sugar intake.
Commodities regulator BULOG has already contracted to buy up to one million tonnes of white sugar this year for delivery by June.
The dramatic fall of the rupiah, which has lost more than 70 per cent of its value against the dollar since July, has made imports expensive and threatened businesses that rely on imported goods.
Trade sources said on Monday the country's 1998 sugar output was expected to match last year's production of 2.1 million tonnes despite a disastrous drought because the government planned to open new sugar plantations this year.
Soetojo said the average Indonesian consumed between 14 and 15 kg of sugar annually, more than the annual per capita intake in China and India."India has an annual sugar per capita consumption of 10 kilograms while China is six. When it comes to consumer goods, I think we can economise," said Soetojo.
"You can drink tea without sugaror you can have your coffee black," he said.In January, neighbouring Malaysia launched a health campaign aimed at cutting sugar consumption by more than half.
Malaysia plans to reduce the sugar consumption of its 20 million people to around just 30,000 tonnes monthly from the present 76,000 tonnes.
Soetojo said demand for sugar imports could still be cut through a reduction in intake even if domestic production had to fall this year. "If per capita sugar intake can be reduced to 10 kilograms, then I think we don't have to import sugar anymore," he said.
The sources gave no further details. Last year's severe drought hit most Indonesian crops such as rice, coffee, cocoa and rubber.
Secretary-General of the Indonesian Sugar Producers Association Untung Basuki has said the continuing dry conditions meant the sugar crop this year was likely to be a "little less" than the 2.1 million tonnes in 1997, while consumption was between 3.1 million and 3.2 million tonnes a year.
