- VIVAnews/Nurcholis Anhari Lubis
VIVAnews – The Trade Ministry of Indonesia said the rice price hike recently was induced by reduced harvests in some regions. This conditions led to the decline in production.
"Only a few areas are still in production, but sporadically," said Trade Ministry Director of Domestic Trade, Gunaryo, at the Trade Ministry office, Jakarta, Friday.
In addition, Gunaryo continued, when the supply is limited, the high demands of State Logistics Agency (Bulog) and entrepreneurs contributed to the high prices. Bulog, as assigned, must absorb the rice and increase the stocks. "They're vying for rice, so the prices at the consumer level rose," he said.
The output of the grand harvest up to May was projected to come at 60 percent of the total production target of 70.6 million tons of dry milled grain. At the end of the year, there is only ‘gadu’ harvest (dry season crop), so the results are less.
Gunaryo also confirmed that the price hike was not caused by the canceled sale of Thai rice. "I have not seen that it will have an effect," he said.
Based on data of the Trade Ministry, to date, the price of medium rice on national level on average in September is Rp7,472 per kilogram. It was only an increase of 0.69 percent compared to last month.
However, in some cities the rice price hikes are quite high, for example, in Surabaya. The price of rice in September reached Rp8,201 per kilogram. The price went up 3.66 percent compared to last month.
Meanwhile, the rising price of rice in Yogyakarta reached 5.33 percent. However, the price of rice in the area is only Rp7.498 per kilogram.
The government, Gunaryo continued, also continued monitoring the price of rice that began to crawl up, for example Bulog must perform market operations.
"When stocks are good, they can be directly allocated to areas whose warehouse is empty. Hopefully, if the price increases slowly, it can be reported to the regional government immediately and market operations can be performed," he said.
Until two weeks ago, said Gunaryo, the market operations had channeled as many as 80,000 tons of rice, 50 percent medium rice and the remaining was premium rice.
"So now the market operation cannot only rely on medium rice, because some locations have premium rice shortage," said Gunaryo.
Translated by Indah Lestari
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