South Sumatra Exports First Coffee to Malaysia and Australia Worth Rp33.6 Billion

TEMPO.CO, Palembang - Indonesia's (Sumsel) has penetrated the international market by conducting its first commercial export to Malaysia and Australia, facilitated by the Financial Services Authority (OJK) through an industrial ecosystem in collaboration with various relevant policy makers.

The coffee exports that will be carried out throughout 2025 are 14 containers with a capacity of 19.8 tons. The coffee will be sent to Malaysia as many as 10 containers and Australia as many as 4 containers, with a total of 277.2 tons or worth Rp33.6 billion.

Head of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) for the South Sumatra (Sumsel) and Bangka Belitung (Babel) Regions, Arifin Susato said, in this first export, OJK has only released three containers or 59.4 tons of green bean coffee from 2 coffee producing areas in South Sumatra.

Thus, there are 8 containers left to be sent to Malaysia and 3 more containers to be sent to Australia with a total of 217.8 tons or worth Rp26.4 billion.

"Sent to Malaysia 2 containers, namely 39.6 tons and Australia 1 container, namely 19.8 tons, so the total is only 3 containers or 59.4 tons sent for this first export," said Arifin Susanto at the Bom Baru Port in Palembang on Sunday, January 19, 2025.

For export to Malaysia, at least two types of coffee are sent, namely Robusta Grade 4 from Pagaralam and Arabica Grade 1 Specialty from Semendo, Muara Enim. Meanwhile, the coffee sent to Australia is Robusta Grade 1 coffee from Pagaralam.

Furthermore, Arifin said that one of the challenges in coffee exports so far is the unclear coffee sales system in South Sumatra, as the number one largest coffee producer in Indonesia. As a result, this special coffee is not known by the public.

The proof, said Arifin, is that for 13 years as a coffee producing area with a coffee production figure of 190,000 tons per year, South Sumatra has still not been able to export coffee alone. "So far, exports have not been carried out in South Sumatra. It's like South Sumatra has coffee, Lampung has a name," said Arifin.

According to Arifin, this is the reason OJK and the South Sumatra Provincial Government are forming a sales ecosystem so that they can export abroad, so as to introduce South Sumatra coffee to the world stage and will develop it to various countries.

"So this may not be the first, there will also be developments in the future. We will work with original exporters from Palembang to explore exports to Algeria," said Arifin.

Meanwhile, Acting Governor of South Sumatra Elen Setiadi said that the potential and economic benefits of South Sumatra are also very high. However, there are still many things that must be done by the South Sumatra Government in post-harvest facilities for coffee farmers, such as providing warehouses and dryers to maintain the quality of the coffee produced.

"Farmers need to be facilitated, because there is no downstream value. Because what has been produced so far is directly sold to offtakers and buyers. So the added value is only in the coffee product, even though we only need to process it one step further, the economic value may be higher," said Elen.

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