Mon, 11 Oct 2010

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - PT Megasurya, a CPO-based consumer goods industry, planned to expand the market in the European Union with an export growth of 30 percent.

It made the pan following the obtainment of a Roundtable Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certificate in July this year.

"We are the first oil palm derivative company in the world with an RSPO certificate," general manager of the subsidiary of the Musim Mas Group PT Megasurya Mas Wibowo Suryadinata said here Friday.

He said in July 2010 the company obtained a RSPO certificate from Control Union Certifications (CUC) for a supply chain. He hoped the RSPO certificate will raise the exports to European Union countries.

"We hope exports to the European Union could increase by 30 pct," Wibowo said. He was eyeing the company`s market or manufacturers in the European Union which produce consumption goods like bathing soap, margarine, and aromatherapeutic wax.

He said the export of CPO derivative products like margarine, soap and wax to the European Union contributed 10 percent of the total exports of the company which last year reached 57 million to 60 million US dollars.

Besides to Europe, PT Megasurya Mas also exported various products to more than 100 countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, as well as to South Asia like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Japan.

"Our exports to those countries had been growing by an average of 3-5 percent per year. And we was hoping the growth may be higher than two percent following the RSPO certificate," Wibowo said.

He added that after PT Megasurya Mas secured the RSPO certificate, a number of foreign buyers who cared for environmentally friendly products had explored purchasing contracts from several countries including Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands.

"Japanese and Australian companies were interested in importing soap and wax basic materials bearing their own brand, like carried out by companies in the Netherlands," he said.

Actually PT Megasurya Mas has its own coap brand also for export, such as Popular (multipurpose soap) for the markets in Africa, bathing soap bearing the brands Lervia, Medicare, and Harmony, for export to various countries.

"We hope the RSPO certificate brings an added value for our products, not only for market development ub the European Union, but also to strengthen Indonesia`s emage as an environmentally friendly country," he said.

Up till today, PT Megasurya Mas has a washing soap production capacity of 10 thousand tons per month, while total production of oil palm based wax reached 5000 tons per month, and margarine 5,000 tons per month, located in Surabaya, East Java. (*)