Press Release

SMART provides close to 1,000 farming scholarships in Indonesia over last 10 years

RBF | Mar 13, 2017

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JAKARTA, 13 March 2017 – PT SMART Tbk. (SMART) continues to support the future of farming in Indonesia through education. For over a decade, SMART has invested in providing scholarships for high school graduates to study palm oil processing technology and oil palm plantation management in selected national universities such as IPB (over 500 scholarships), INSTIPER (345 scholarships) and ITSB (85 scholarships) . To date, SMART has provided scholarships to around 1,000 Indonesian students, with more than half of these students are currently working in the company’s oil palm estates and mills.

Speaking at the sidelines of the 4th Responsible Business Forum on Food and Agriculture (RBF) in Jakarta, Managing Director of Sustainability PT SMART Tbk., Agus Purnomo, said “As a significant employer in Indonesia with over 170,000 employees and smallholders, we understand the value of high quality, educated and motivated people in our workforce. We see these scholarships as an investment not only for SMART’s future workforce but for the agriculture sector in Indonesia as a whole.”

This year, there are three scholarship programmes that the company will offer: SMART Planters, SMART ITSB and Jalur Prestasi.

SMART Planters programme offers an opportunity for the students to pursue:

  • Bachelor’s degree in palm oil plantation from INSTIPER Yogyakarta
  • Coverage of course fees
  • Field work practice for 6-months and work placement for 12 months in one of SMART’s plantation
  • Additional living expenses coverage for the top ten-performers per semester

SMART ITSB program, include:

  • Diploma in Palm Oil Industrial Engineering from ITSB Cikarang, West Java
  • Coverage of courses fees
  • On the job-training
  • Additional living expenses coverage for the top ten-performers per semester

In addition, this year SMART opens a new scholarship programme called Jalur Prestasi. This programme offers top performing students from selected high schools to receive full scholarship from INSTIPER and ITSB without an admission test.

To promote the scholarship programmes and encourage students to apply, SMART’s Human Resources team will visit several high schools in several cities in Sumatera and Java, such as Riau, Lampung and Yogyakarta starting end of March 2017. Registration for the scholarships is open now and candidates have until 21 April 2017 to apply. The selection process has several stages, including interviews, a written test and a medical test. The company will announce successful candidates in early June and they  will begin their courses at ITSB or INSTIPER in early August 2017.

For more information on the scholarship programme and to download registration forms, please visit: www.smart-tbk/beasiswa

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About PT SMART Tbk

PT SMART Tbk is one of the largest, publicly-listed, integrated palm-based consumer companies in Indonesia committed to sustainable palm oil production.

Founded in 1962, SMART’s palm plantations have a total coverage area of approximately 138,700 hectares (including small holders). SMART also operates 16 mills, four kernel crushing plants and four refineries.

PT SMART is a subsidiary of Golden Agri-Resources Ltd (“GAR”), which is one of the largest palm-based companies in the world which is listed on the Singapore Exchange. SMART also manages all of GAR’s oil palm plantations, which has a total planted area of 482,228 hectares (including smallholders) in Indonesia, as at 30 September 2016.

This relationship benefits SMART with its economies of scale in plantation management, information technology, research and development, sourcing of raw material, and access to a wide domestic and international marketing network.­

About the 4th Responsible Business Forum on Food and Agriculture (RBF) 

Under the theme ‘Securing Asia’s Food & Nutrition Future’, the 4th Responsible Business Forum on Food and Agriculture (RBF) also discusses roles of technology and knowledge to enhance the agriculture sector. RBF is organised by Global Initiatives with KADIN, PISAgro and the Indonesian Business Council for Sustainable Development, with GAR as the principal sponsor of the event. The fourth edition of RBF, which is held in at the Grand Hyatt from the 14-15th of March 2017,  gather over 450 international decision makers from business, government, tech entrepreneurs, NGO’s and farmers to establish new approaches to further food security & nutrition in Asia.

For more information on PT SMART, please contact

Wulan Suling

+62 818 909 900

wulan.suling@sinarmas-agri.com

Media helpdesk in Jakarta

Untuk konfirmasi dan informasi, silakan hubungi di atau denganAmanda di 081298287317 Email: amanda@imagedynamics.co.id

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