Minister of Industry Optimistic IFIC Able to Become a Superior Center for Food and Drink Industry
By : Ridwan And Aldi Firhand. A | Wednesday, March 21 2018 - 22:02 IWST
Minister of Industry Airlangga Hartarto
INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta, the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) continues to encourage every company to become a global supplier through the support of the establishment of the Indonesian Food Innovation Center (IFIC).
IFIC was founded by the Indonesian Food and Beverage Entrepreneurs Association (Gapmmi) along with the Business Innovation Center (BIC), as well as the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
"With this IFIC is expected to be the center of excellent for Food and Beverage industry in Indonesia. At the ASEAN level, has agreed that the Food and Beverage industry to be the mainstay sector in the future, including in the development of digital economy," said Minister of Industry Airlangga Hartarto in Jakarta, Wednesday (21 / 3/2018).
He added that IFIC is one of the results of the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) program, in which the Ministry of Industry is acting as a focal point.
"This IFIC will have a role as a global link between Food and Beverage industry to innovation in agro to support food security so it can increase added value," explained Minister of Industry.
In addition, IFIC has a mission to promote Indonesian agro-food products and services.
"Today, industrial organizations are shaped by globally-connected company behavior, so that the involvement of a company in a global value chain becomes very important, especially now that international standardization is required for market expansion of industrial products," he continued.
Meanwhile, Head of the Agency for Industrial Research and Development (BPPI) Ngakan Timur Antara conveyed, several strategies that will be taken by IFIC at this time is to make agro-food innovation database system and build cooperation with foreign industry association.
"This cooperation with overseas parties enables the domestic industry to benchmark, know the latest process technology, obtain vocational education, develop expertise for best practices and increase productivity," Ngakan said.
According to Ngakan, this synergy step will also benefit both parties because of the attractiveness of Indonesia as a food product market is very large.
"Australia as an example is ready to cooperate because the ASEAN market share reaches 600 million people, plus if you look more specifically to the halal market share of 1.8 billion people," he said.
In addition to cooperation with overseas, IFIC will be encouraged in the future to collaborate with the Indonesian Agro Industry Center (BBIA), one of the technical services units under the BPPI of Ministry of Industry.
This collaboration is intended to form a Science and Technology Park or Science Techno Park (STP) that serves as a vehicle for interaction between industry, academia and government.
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