
Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia’s National Food Agency (Bapanas)announced that the government is preparing to import an additional 1.6 milliontonnes of rice to fill the government's rice reserves managed by thenational logistic agency (Bulog).
Bapanas Head Arief Prasetyo Adi stated at the PresidentialPalace in Jakarta on February 26 that the President asked that there be a minimumof 1.2 million tonnes in stock at Bulog, while actually he wanted it to be 3 million tonnes.
According to Adi, the government already has animport quota of 2 million tonnes of rice for the CBP stock. From the quota,the realisation of imported rice has only reached 500,000 tonnes.
Adi admitted that the current price of rice is still above16,000 IDR (1.02 USD) per kilogram. This is because the price of harvested drygrain at the farmer level is still in the range of 8,000-8,600 IDR perkilogram in several areas.
He targets that the rice price will only becorrected when the harvest reaches 3.5 million tonnes. However, it takes up tothree weeks for the harvested rice to be distributed to the community.
The official said that if the harvest is above 3.5million tonnes, it usually takes two weeks to three weeks to 'convert' it intorice. At harvest, the grain is dried until distribution in approximately threeweeks.
The government also assigned Bulog to sell riceat a maximum retail price to the public through the Food Supply and PriceStabilization programme of 250,000 tonnes.
Moreover, millers in several areas have been urged to conductmassive distribution of rice in five-kilogram packages to all retailers andtraditional markets./.