Indonesia has succeeded in achieving self-sufficiency in corn, as domestic production has reached 90 percent of domestic demand. Indonesia has become self-sufficient in corn and has also begun exporting the product (the ministry's director general of food crops). However, this does not mean that imports have stopped. In 2008, Indonesia imported 170,000 tons of corn and exported 150,000 tons. Exports may still increase. This year the production target had been set at around 18 million tons, of which one million tons will be exported.

For 2009, the agriculture ministry has allocated a corn seed subsidy for producing 4,266 tons of corn, on an area of 225,534 hectares. Seed assistance taken from national seed supplies for farmers will reach 5,595 tons for an area of 353,000 hectares. Direct top seed assistance, totaling 7,610 tons, meanwhile has been allocated for an area of 507,333 hectares.

In line with the increasing of food and woof industry that using corn as raw material, Indonesia corn production experience a huge increase during almost last three decades (1970-2009). For the period of 1970-2009, corn production has steadily increased from 2.83 million tons in 1970 to about 16.48 million tons in 2009 (a growth rate of 8.4% per year). This continued growth of production could be mainly attributed to consistent growth in yields. During 1970-2009, the annual growth of yield was 8.19%, while harvested area growth was 0.91% per year. In 1970-1980, corn production grew at a rate of 3.76% per year.

According to the Presidential Regulation No. 28/2008 about national industry policy the location of the development for corn industry will be located in five provinces namely Lampung, NTT, Gorontalo, Middle Sulawesi and South Sulawesi. The number of regencies in these provinces is 23 regencies, i.e., 7 regencies in Lampung, 2 regencies in NTT, 5 regencies in Gorontalo, 3 regencies in Middle Sulawesi, and 6 regencies in South Sulawesi.

In the past decade, forestry has been categorized as a sunset industry, although forests themselves have now taken on a new economic value — not from exploitation but from protecting them. With 75.27 million hectares of rainforest, according to Ministry of Forestry data, Indonesia could earn billions of dollars in carbon trading if it were able to protect and properly manage its forests. The government's plan to issue a presidential decree allowing mining companies to mine underground in protected forest concession areas has resulted in mixed reactions from industry stakeholders.

The mining companies praised the decree, saying it would benefit the company immediately. For example, Antam and Australian exploration and mining company Herald Resources have a joint venture called PT Dairi Prima Mineral to develop a large lead zinc deposit in Dairi Regency, North Sumatra.
From 1969 to 1974, about 11 million ha of forest concessions were issued in just one province, that is, in East Kalimantan. Log production escalated to 28 million cubic meters. About 75 percent on this was exported.

In 1994, ten of the largest forest concession company conglomerates controlled 28.18 million ha (45 percent) of the forest concessions in the country. These companies then formed a cartel (APKINDO) that made Indonesia the largest plywood producer in the world and successfully increased the international price of plywood. The total income produced reached US$ 5.5 billion, equivalent to 15% of entire export earnings.

In 1995, about 585 forest concessions carried out logging on 62.5 million ha throughout Indonesia. They seized more than 62.5 million (49%) of natural forests in Indonesia which were thereafter termed “State forests”. About 28.18 million ha of them were controlled by just 10 companies.


In 1996, there were 445 forest concession holders covering an area of 54,060,599 hectares. Almost 50% of these were controlled by the same 10 companies. Nevertheless, in the mid 1990s, several of forest concessions were retracted. In a proportion of these cases, the forest concession holders had violated the law, while in other cases the tree stand value in the forest concession had deteriorated. Brown estimates that the total number of forest concessions had declined to 464 while the forest area under forest concessions had declined to 52 millions ha. In practice, the “retraction” of more than 100 forest concession licenses did not stop activities. Some forest concessions, whose 20 year contract period had ended, were shifted to five State-owned forestry enterprises (Inhutani I to V), or were re-formed as a partnership between the private company and one of the State-owned companies.

Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to review the possibility of refining the existing bilateral cooperation’s MoU that related to some commodities.  The review is related to the new commodity that will be added into the previous list in the cooperation framework.  The commodity is Jathropa Curcas which will be joined together with the previous (Palm Oil, Cacao, and Pepper). The agreement was took place at the  4th Joint Committee Meeting  Forum which attended by Minister of Commodity and Plant Industry of Malaysia, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, and Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia, Anton Apriyantono, in Malaysia.  The MoU refining is purported to improve the cooperation, especially in data and technical aspect information exchange in pursuing research and development activities on Jathropa.

Government of Indonesia, represented by Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, and Government of Korea, represented by Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, agreed to cooperate, especially in utilizing seaweed for bio-fuel development. The cooperation was also intended to promote the enlargement of algae utilization as an estuary of two interests. First, Indonesia needs to develop technology to utilize the resources at one side. And, secondly, Korea with the technology that has already been developed also needs a resources in order to implement the vision of “Low Carbon, Green Growth” at the other side.

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