Indonesia’s culinary and processed foods are ready to penetrate international markets
Jakarta, 15th October 2010 – By the second day of TEI 2010 on Thursday (14/10), the committee has recorded the visit of 4,407 international buyers from 84 countries. In that period, furniture still dominated buyers’ interest, i.e. 28.5%, with the total transaction value of US$39,86 million.
“The number of buyers keeps increasing and we are optimistic that the target to bring in 8,000 buyers can be achieved. It is a hard work of Indonesian Embassies, Commercial Attaches, and ITPC to bring in trade missions and promote TEI 2010 through overseas fora and exhibitions,” said the Secretary of the Directorate General of National Export Development, Chrisnawan Triwahyudiarto.
The National Foods Exhibition 2010 which is held coincidentally with the Trade Expo Indonesia (TEI) provides a special tone by presenting various national culinary products and processed foods. The National Foods Exhibition 2010 carries the theme of ‘Marine Tastes’, which presents Indonesia’s marine resources in various process foods. The National Foods Exhibition has been an annual event held by the Directorate of Small and Medium Business Enterprises and Domestic Products, the Directorate General of Domestic Trade, the Ministry of Trade since 2006. By the second day of the exhibition, the National Foods Exhibition 2010 has generated a total transaction of Rp 344,50 million.
“Marine resources such as seaweed and fish have been Indonesia’s reliable export products. In the last few years, we have kept developing technologies for processed foods so that Indonesia will not only export marine products, but also processed foods that have added value highly desired by international markets. Through the National Foods Exhibition 2010, we want to introduce various kinds of Indonesia’s potential processed foods and culinary products that are presumably able to attract foreign markets and give contribution to the national export,” said the Director of Small and Medium Enterprises and Domestic Products, Suhanto.
Among other Indonesia’s marine products displayed in the National Foods Exhibition is dry sauce made of Roa fish as the raw material, which is a kind of fish easily found in Sulawesi and Maluku seas. The abundance of Roa fish in those areas has inspired an entrepreneur, Rita Fithriyati, to process it to be quality dry sauce having durability of six months. Various kinds of innovation have been made by Madam Rita to develop her products such as doing product research and development in cooperation with LIPI (Indonesian Institute of Sciences) and IPB (Bogor Agricultural University). In marketing her products, this enterpreneur also utilizes information technology, i.e. doing promotion in Facebook social network. Today, her Roa fish dry sauce products have had consumers from a variety of regions in Indonesia such as Sidoarjo, Lampung, and Jabotabek.
Buyers’ visit to the National Foods arena generated a trial order amounting to Rp 22 million for salted eggs by a buyer from South Korea. Palm sugar products were also able to attract the interest of buyers from Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and the countries in Asia Pacific with trial order value amounting to Rp 19 million.
Trade Expo Indonesia (TEI) at a Glance
Trade Expo Indonesia is an international-scale B to B exhibition of the best Indonesian products aimed at foreign buyers. In addition to increase trading transactions, this exhibition is also held to find and increase opportunities in new markets while maintaining traditional ones. It is expected that TEI – which is professional and displays the best Indonesian products in terms of design, innovation, and technology – will position Indonesia as a globally-known creative and competitive nation.
TEI was initially held in 1985 with the objective to promote national export products. At that time the name was Indonesia’s Export Products Expo (PPE) and in its development until today, PPE has made improvements in its organization. PPE was revitalized in 2006 (the first stage was 2006-2010) by the Minister of Trade Mari Pangestu with the objective to make the exhibition as a quality expo of international standard that will finally boost non-oil and natural gas export stronger. In 2006, the name of PPE was replaced by TEI to reinforce its existence as an international expo. One revitalization of TEI concept was the introduction of the Main Products Arena (APU) as the prototype of an ideal B to B expo, where the participants were the companies that were ready to enter international markets. Since TEI 2007, promotion for export services was also conducted with a special area available for export services supplying industry and creative industry. The participants in this sector has kept increasing from year to year
In this year of 2010, TEI is going to enter a transition period to the next stage of revitalization program to achieve the exhibition’s vision as an international agenda that presents quality and prestigious domestic products.
The National Foods Exhibition at a Glance
The National Foods Exhibition for small and medium business enterprises was initially held in 2006 initiated by the Minister of Trade and intended to create added values for abundant natural resources in the land, the sea, and other waters which were basic ingredients of culinary products and processed foods. This exhibition is also intended to develop and socialize culinary products and processed foods to stimulate the birth of international-class producers of culinary products and processed foods.
The marine theme is carried to show buyers and expo visitors regarding wide potencies of the seas, waters and various derivative products thereof that have been developed to be a variety of quality foodstuffs ready to penetrate international markets.
