Minister of Agriculture Confused 'Why Indonesia Import Garlic From Singapore?'

5 March 2014

On January 2014, the Statistical Centre Body (BPS) recorded that Indonesia imported 6,427 tons of garlic that worth US$ 3.1 million. The data also showed that Indonesia imported 55.8 tons of garlic or around US$ 24,000 from Singapore. Minister of Agriculture (Mentan) Suswono was confused to that fact.

“What have Singapore planted?” Suswono asked to the reporters in his office in South Jakarta on Tuesday (4/3).

Although so, Suswono admitted that Indonesia had been importing garlic up to the moment. “Yes, we had been importing garlic up to the moment,” Suswono said.

In the same location, the Director General of Horticulture under the Ministry of Agriculture, Hasanuddin Ibrahim said that according to import’s certificate of origin, import of garlic from Singapore is not true. The garlic was imported from China.

“This garlic was imported from China. Singapore does not have agriculture land. Singapore is a city, they are planting buildings, not crops,” Hasanuddin said.

Previously, the Head of Indonesia’s Horticulture Farmers Community (HKTI) Benny Kusbini said that Singapore is a hub port in of Southeast Asia and International trade. So it is not weird if Singapore is able to export agriculture product such as garlic that was not produced in Singapore.

“I had confirmed that the garlic was imported from China, not Singapore. The ship transported the goods from China, to Hanoi then transit in Singapore. Singapore does not have this product. It is absolutely wrong, we are not importing garlic from Singapore,” Benny said.

According to Benny, transshipment is common issues in order for maintain efficiency in goods distribution. Usually the cargo ships from China will transport product that they exported to Europe or Middle East at the same time with the product that they will export to Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia.

During the transshipment in Singapore, the cargo ships will unload containers with destination to Indonesia. The containers of garlic and salt from China will be shipped to Indonesian ports by using smaller ships as Indonesia is not able to take such container ships due to the depths of the ports.