Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) increased the supply of rice commodities to the domestic market as a strategy to reduce selling prices at the consumer level, which is currently affected by the high price of grain.
“Farmers are happy that the price of grain is expensive. The price of grain is IDR 7,300, some are IDR 7,400, IDR 7,500, up to IDR 7,600 (per kilogram). If the farmers are happy, the rice buyers are not happy,” said President Jokowi when reviewing the harvest. Raya in Subang, West Java, Sunday, as informed by the Presidential Secretariat.
Reporting from the last update on grain prices on the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) website as of September 2023, the price of Harvested Dry Grain (GKP) at the farmer level reached IDR 6,415 per kilogram, the price of Milled Dry Grain (GKG) IDR 7,386 per kilogram, and External Quality (GLK) IDR 6,043 per kilogram.
President Jokowi said that the current high price of grain is contributing to the increase in the price of rice commodities in the domestic market which needs to be anticipated.
“We have to overcome this by pumping out as much (rice) as possible, supplying as much as possible to the market, so that prices can go down,” he said.
This strategy, said President Jokowi, was effective in reducing the price of rice commodities at the Cipinang Main Market, East Jakarta.
“Meanwhile in Cipinang, prices have fallen. But we hope that this will also happen in the market, for consumers too,” said President Jokowi.
On that occasion, President Jokowi confirmed that 1.7 million tons of national rice reserves were still stored in the Logistics Business Entity (Bulog) warehouse for supplies during the El Nino phenomenon that hit Indonesia.
“Because of El Nino, production continues to decline, continues to decrease. But there is no problem because our reserves in Bulog are still large at 1.7 million tons,” said President Jokowi. (mhn/bbs)
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