SINGAPORE: Indonesia’s biggest banana producer, Nusantara Tropical Farm, signed a memorandum of understanding with Benelux Flower and Food for its first Cavendish banana export to Singapore. The contract was signed during the Fruit Indonesia 2016 exhibition in Jakarta, with a first purchase order worth a total of $240,000. Nusantara Tropical Farm hopes to double the export volume by next year.
The new partnership reflects recent efforts by an Indonesia-Singapore bilateral working group in agribusiness that met earlier this year and of the Indonesian Embassy which has been looking to improve Indonesia’s horti- and agricultural presence in Singapore — where more than 80 percent of fruits and vegetables come from Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
“We hope this Cavendish banana export will be followed by exports of other fruits and vegetables to the Singaporean market. Indonesian farmers will gain a lot from it,” Indonesian Ambassador Ngurah Swajaya said in a press release.
Ngurah said agricultural products that are always in demand in Singapore include broccoli, mangoes and dragon fruits.
By early February next year, the bananas are going to be sold at the largest grocery chains in Singapore, NTUC and Cold Storage.
As the partnership is likely to be expanded to exports of dragon fruits and pineapples, Nusantara Tropical Farm and Benelux Flower and Food are currently working on a new delivery system to export more Indonesian produce to Singapore.
