Jakarta, Oct. 9 -- Minister of Agriculture Andi Amran Sulaiman has initiated a downstreaming initiative for several key horticultural commodities, including tall coconut, to ensure that there will be no more exports of unprocessed and whole coconuts in the near future.

In a press conference held at the Presidential Office in Jakarta on Thursday, Sulaiman revealed that Indonesia currently exports 2.8 million tons of tall coconut annually.

He emphasized the potential for downstream processing into products such as coconut milk and virgin coconut oil-products whose value can increase up to 100 times.

"We have done the math. On average, this could generate up to Rp2,400 trillion (approx. US$144.7 billion). Even if we only manage half of th...