BRIN: Technological Innovation Key to Developing Value-Added Forest Products

The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) assesses that technological innovation is an important factor in increasing production efficiency, yield, and the development of value-added forest products. “Wood is a material with extraordinary advantages and remains highly relevant for the future,” said BRIN’s Director of Environmental, Maritime, Natural Resources, and Nuclear Policy, Ratih Damayanti, in a joint statement with the Ministry of Forestry received in Denpasar, Bali, on Friday. Echoing this, the Secretary of the Indonesian Forestry Community Communication Forum (FKMPI), Tjipta Purwita, stated that challenges in the downstream wood industry currently include raw material certainty, production efficiency, market certainty, and competitiveness. Further challenges involve inefficient licensing, geopolitical impacts, and global market dynamics regarding market requirements and competition with wood product substitute materials. “Business actors need fiscal support for machinery imports, financing for wood processing infrastructure modernisation, and improvements to licensing regulations,” said Tjipta. In addition, he said business actors also need support in the form of strengthening the domestic market through government procurement via the digital platform for the procurement of goods and services (Inaproc). Tjipta continued that strengthening the implementation of the Timber Legality and Sustainability Verification System (SVLK), market intelligence, market diversification, flexibility in raw material use, upstream-downstream partnerships, and the development of industrial plantation forests are also important areas of focus going forward. Meanwhile, the Director of Forest Product Processing and Marketing at the Ministry of Forestry, Ade Mukadi, also stressed that what is needed now is collaboration and a shared vision and mission for downstream processing. “This serves as a modality in strengthening the forest products industry, so that the sunset of the forest product processing industry can be disproven,” said Ade. Furthermore, he said the Ministry of Forestry is also inviting all stakeholders to make this public consultation momentum a joint step towards building an Indonesian forest product industry ecosystem that is economically strong and excels in sustainability aspects.