Coconut demand high: Official

COCONUT is an agricultural commodity from which as many as 103 different products can be made and it has a huge global market demand, Kokonas Indastri Koporesen (KIK) acting managing director Alan Aku says.
Aku said at a meeting with
Agriculture and Livestock vice-minister Henry Amuli at the KIK head office in Port Moresby on Friday.
“Copra (coconut) is an agricultural commodity that has a huge demand on the global market and PNG has a golden opportunity to tape into this market and benefit from it,” he said.
“The problem has been a lack of government support and what we need to do now in the industry is undertake an audit on copra plantations throughout the country.”
Aku said it was important to understand the status of land issues concerning plantations and what issues needed to be addressed to revive the industry.
He said the need to undertake a plantation audit was something that needed to be done on the other commodities such as cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber and spices to update the state on the status of these agricultural commodities.
“For the copra industry, our two main challenge now is replanting and rehabilitation of the coconut trees and the control of Bogia Coconut Syndrome and research and development,” he said.
“We currently have 15 small to medium enterprises who have commenced downstream processing since 2014 and some are exporting their products overseas to Australia, New Zealand and the European markets.”
Aku said KIK was already in discussions with major investors to come into the country for downstream processing and urged the government to support their budget submissions and a policy paper they were working on.
He also commended Amuli for being the first vice-minister to visit KIK office to discuss issues affecting the industry with the senior management.