Vice President Jusuf Kalla on Friday held a meeting with executives of the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) to discuss technology offered by the latter to address the issue of salt scarcity in the country.

“Actually, we were able to produce salt more quickly and efficiently,” said BPPT head Unggul Priyanto, referring to the new technology, after meeting with Kalla in the latter’s office in Jakarta on Friday as reported by tempo.co.

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded that Indonesia imported 2 million tons of salt worth US$100 million in 2016. This year, the figure is likely to increase because of a decrease in local production.

Recently, Trade Minister Anggartiasto Lukita allowed the import of 75,000 tons of additional salt to solve the issue of salt scarcity.

Uggul said his agency, in looking to increase salt productivity, offered its technology, which shakes up seawater to increase its salt levels before it flows into reservoirs where drying facilities are located.

As seawater has high salt content, the drying process could be shortened to only four days from 12 days, he said.

Meanwhile, BPPT agro-industry technology head Eniya L. Dewi said that to apply the technology, her agency needed about 300 to 400 hectares of land and two reservoirs.

She said East Nusa Tengara, West Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi were ideal places to introduce the technology because they could provide large swaths of land and had low-levels of downpour. (dis/bbn)