Indonesia designs agricultural commodities digital tracker in sustainability push

INDONESIA plans to set up a digital dashboard by August to track its agricultural commodities, its economics ministry said, as the world’s top palm oil exporter looks to monitor US$6.5 billion worth of products that face a new EU anti-deforestation rule.

The dashboard aims to increase the transparency of the supply chain of agriculture commodities such as palm oil, coffee and rubber, and better promote sustainability standards in the country, the ministry said on Wednesday (Jun 5).

It said that would help Indonesian exports navigate the European Union Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR), set to be implemented at the end of 2024, which will ban imports of commodities linked to deforestation.

Indonesian exports of palm oil, cocoa, coffee, rubber and timber worth six billion euros (S$8.8 billion) will be affected by the EUDR, Jakarta has previously estimated.

“We must be able to track goods that we trade so that we can improve trading going forward,” said Musdhalifah Machmud, deputy minister with the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Indonesia plans to start running the dashboard ahead of a meeting of a joint task force with the EU and Malaysia in September, during which the three will discuss the implementation of the EUDR.

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Indonesia and Malaysia have said the EUDR is a discriminatory policy targeting their palm oil. The EU said the rules are to ensure the bloc does not contribute to forest degradation worldwide. REUTERS