Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – President Joko Widodo visited Wonokromo Market in Surabaya City, East Java, Saturday, to check stocks and prices of food ingredients, such as rice, cooking oil and eggs.
According to the President, the price of rice on the market is quite good, with around IDR 9,000 per kilogram. This means that the market operations carried out by Perum Bulog to stabilize rice prices are already underway
“I want to check a very important item called rice. Has the operation from Bulog reached stalls, to markets. I have seen it and the price is good, earlier Rp. 44,000 for five kilos (grams). That means, the price is below Rp. 9 000. Earlier we saw all the stalls, there are all of them and they are abundant here,” President Jokowi said in an official statement received in Jakarta, Saturday.
President Jokowi said that a number of regions had entered the main harvest season, namely at the end of February to early March.
With this harvest, the President hopes that rice stocks will become more abundant which will then affect the price of rice in the market.
The Head of State estimates that the national harvest area in February 2023 will reach 1 million hectares, while in March it will reach 1.9 million hectares.
“Approximately that, if production is from farmers, from harvest there, it means that the stock is abundant. If the stock is abundant, the demand is constant, meaning that prices will automatically fall,” he said.
The President is also reviewing the prices of other foodstuffs, such as cooking oil, with an average price of IDR 14,000 per liter. Then, eggs and shallots also decreased, although not significantly.
The Head of State hopes that the stability of food prices in the regions can be maintained, so that inflation both at the regional and national levels as a whole can be properly controlled.
“Don’t let it be like rice, a month ago it raised very high inflation throughout the country, not only in East Java, but now five days ago because rice operations from Bulog have started to go down, although not all regions,” he said . (mhn/bbs)
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