Fajarasia.co – President Joko Widodo reiterated that the world, including Indonesia, is currently faced with the possibility of rising food and energy prices, so the government needs to prepare anticipatory steps, reflecting on the case of cooking oil.
“It’s not easy, especially two things across the country that are all going up right now. The first, energy, means fuel, gas, electricity, everything goes up, in all countries. The second is food, everything goes up,” said the President in Magelang Regency, Saturday (21/5/2022).
Although it is not easy, the Government continues to make efforts to prevent a spike in price increases in the two sectors.
The President gave an example of the policies taken by the Government to prevent an increase in cooking oil prices.
Like cooking oil, the President said that a number of policies have been decided to maintain the stability of cooking oil prices in the market.
But it turns out that the problem of cooking oil is not an easy thing.
He said, since January 2022 there has been an increase in the price of cooking oil due to an increase in international prices.
“Because the price of cooking oil, especially in Europe, in America, is rising high. So that domestic prices (Indonesia, ed) are pulled (increasing prices),” said the President.
Therefore, domestic cooking oil producers prefer to export cooking oil compared to supplying it domestically, resulting in an increase in domestic oil prices due to stock scarcity.
To overcome this problem, the President finally decided on several policies to overcome these problems.
“Finally I stopped, cooking oil is not allowed to be exported. But it is also a policy that is not easy,” he said.
After the export of cooking oil was stopped, the price of palm fruit bunches fell, and this was related to 17 million workers, both as farmers and workers.
“This country is looking for a balance like that is not easy, don’t think it’s easy, it’s not easy. Likewise, apart from the business of farmers, the business of palm oil workers, it is also a matter of state income,” he added.
However, President Jokowi is optimistic that in the next two weeks the price of cooking oil on the market will be in line with what is expected by the government.
“But the key has been found, this is in a week, two weeks, God willing, the name of bulk cooking oil will be at a price of Rp. 14,000 (per liter),” he continued.
“Earlier I checked at Muntilan Market, I stopped by to check the price per liter, it turned out to be Rp. 14,500. Tomorrow I want to check in other markets, maybe within a week, two weeks, I think all markets are priced like that,” he said.
On this occasion, the President was also grateful for the relatively stable rice price and sufficient rice stock.
In the last three years, the value of rice imports by the government has been very small.
“Usually we import 1.1 million to 2 million tons per year, this has not been for three years. This must be maintained. Thankfully we can enlarge the stock. This means that farmers’ productivity must be increased,” said the Head of State.***
