Indonesia: Minister assures rice imports will not continue during harvest period

Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan has said that the government’s rice imports were necessitated by depleting national stocks and assured they will not extend into the February–March 2023 harvest period.

At least 500 thousand tons of imported rice will arrive in January 2023 at the latest, he informed at a webinar on “Polemic on Rice Imports at the End of Year,” hosted by the Association of Indonesian Muslim Scholars (ICMI) on Tuesday.

“The imports of 200 thousand tons and 300 thousand tons will arrive in January (2023). Imports in December (2022) were 200 thousand tons, but only 70 thousand tons have been received. It will arrive again in January (2023). I said until January. February, March, don’t import again because harvest time is around the corner,” the minister said.

He revealed that he was strongly opposed to rice imports. He said that he had rejected the plan to import rice twice at two cabinet meetings since he grew up in a family of farmers.

The opposition to imports was based on data from the Agriculture Ministry, which reflected a rice surplus of 7 million tons. The data was said to be provided by Statistics Indonesia (BPS).

Yet the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) said that it only had 500 thousand tons of rice remaining in stock, compared to an ideal reserve of 1.2 million tons. At the same time, the price of rice in the market also continued to increase to reach almost Rp1 thousand per kg.

President Widodo instructed the Bulog—along with the Minister of Trade and the Minister of Agriculture—to use up the available rice stock. Unfortunately, despite successfully revising the regulation to enable Bulog to buy at the maximum price instead of the minimum price, the government did not find any supply of rice to purchase.

“We are looking for rice, buy at Rp10 thousand per kg, there’s none of it either. That’s already the second week. We want to buy grain at Rp6 thousand per kg, but that too is unavailable, because it hasn’t been harvested yet. Where is unhulled rice? (The price) of rice is still going up because people know the State Logistics Agency’s stock a little bit, market confidence is compromised,” Hasan said.

In the midst of increasingly high rice prices and lack of supply, President Widodo finally decided to import rice.

“Eventually, after a month of seeking for rice brought no result, the State Logistics Agency had to conduct market operation, only 300 thousand stocks remained.
Finally, it was decided by the Trade Minister to import 200 thousand tons and 300 thousand tons of rice until January 2023,” he added.

Hasan said that he had asked Bulog to use up its supplies for market operations in order to reduce rice prices, which have tended to increase to date.

The request was made because imported rice will arrive soon.

“We urge the State Logistics Agency to use the rice during market operations so we can keep prices down, which are still increasing until now. It’s still going up, the price of rice hasn’t gone down. I want it to be spent. After all, we’ll buy some in February. The State Logistics Agency was still afraid because it doesn’t have experience like us, no. (Unlike us), we are used to doing this in practice, so it’s (not new),” he added.

Tags: imports, stocks, Bulog, harvest, prices, rice