INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - The People's Coalition for Fisheries Justice (KIARA) mentions the difference between imported salt price from Australia and farmer's salt production by 10 percent so that many industries choose imports.

Secretary General of the People's Coalition for Justice of Fisheries Susan Herawati explained that the price of farmers' salt production will be difficult to compete, especially when the wet dry season is over and imported salt is distributed.

"The difference in salt can be 10 percent of the price we can produce," she said in Jakarta on Saturday (12/08/2017), "It's pretty high and very much different from imports,

KIARA also proposed the government to fix the purchase price of the principal (HPP) amounting to Rp2.500 to Rp3.000 per kilogram so that farmers get certainty during wet and harvest.

According to her, the drop in salt prices in producer areas such as Lombok could have an impact on the salt farmers becoming shrimp farmers.

Susan added that in addition to the cheaper price of imported salt, the salt produced by local farmers can not meet the 97 percent level of Sodium Chloride (NaCl) as the industry needs.

According to Susan, the highest level of NaCl that can be produced by local farmers is 94 percent, but can be increased to 97 percent if supported by technology, such as iodization machine.

KIARA noted at least since 1990 salt imports have been carried out as many as 349,042 tons with a value of 16.97 million US dollars to meet industry needs and scarcity of salt stock due to the impact of weather anomalies.

As is known, the government opens tap imports 75 thousand tons of salt consumption from Australia to be done in stages.

A total of 27,500 tons of imported salt from Australia arriving at Tanjung Perak Port Surabaya on Friday (11/2) will be distributed to a number of Small and Medium Industries (IKM) in three areas: East Java, Central Java and West Kalimantan.