The Indonesian government has set the target of national cacao production for 2014 at 1.1 million tonnes compared to 800,000 tonnes last year, a local news agency has said.

Antara News cited Director General of Plantation at the Agriculture Ministry Gamal Nasir as saying that o ne of the efforts to increase cacao production was to continue the National Cacao Movement (Gernas Kakao) that was launched in 2009.

"By launching Gernas Kakao , Indonesia is poised to become the world’s second largest cacao producer," Gamal Nasir noted.

Gernas Kakao, which was originally planned to end in 2011, had been extended to 2014. During its three years of implementation, the government disbursed funds worth 3 trillion rupiah to rehabilitate and intensify 400,000 hectares of cacao plantation, or 27 percent of the current cacao plantations which reach 1.6 million hectares.

To that end, the government will nurture cacao growers across the country by allocating 200 billion rupiah by way of funds, he emphasised.

The government has targeted that Indonesia will be world’s top cacao producer by 2020, which could see it book 2 million tonnes of annual production.

In 2013, Indonesia exported 295,900 tonnes of cacaos worth 794.8 million USD, down from 388,000 tonnes worth 1.05 billion USD the year before.-VNA