Expand Recipient Port Destinations, Bulog Accelerates Realization Of Rice Imports

Illustration - Workers transport buyer's ordered rice at one of the wholesale depots of Meulaboh's Bina Business Market rice. (DOC. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Perum Bulog has increased its target of receiving ports to accelerate the realization of imports so that imported rice can be immediately dismantled and distributed. Bulog itself has succeeded in obtaining an import contract of 1 million tons.

The import contract of 1 million tons comes from an additional quota of rice importation assignments from the government of 1.5 million tons to strengthen government rice reserves.

President Director of Perum Bulog Budi Waseso or Buwas said that during the process of dismantling imported rice, Bulog coordinated and received support from Pelindo which will serve three shifts (24 hours) so as to accelerate the unloading service on the rice ship in question.

In addition, continued Buwas, Bulog also made various efforts to accelerate the realization of the demolition of imported rice, one of which was by opening additional destinations for new recipient ports.

"For the acceleration of the realization of rice imports, we immediately addressed 28 recipient ports throughout Indonesia. At first there were only 17 ports, but in the context of accelerating, we added 11 ports again, bringing a total of 28 recipient ports," he said in an official statement, Saturday, November 11.

Buwas said that from the additional import quota of 1.5 million tons from the government, only 1 million tons could be realized. This is due to the limited time in the import process starting from the process of preparing the commodities and the need for ships for transportation from the shipping country.

"What we can realize is only the contracted one this year. We have successfully contracted as much as 1 million tons, the remaining 500,000 tons cannot carry over because carry over can only be contracted this year. With this additional import quota, the government's rice reserve stock controlled by Bulog is very safe until next year," he said.

As for the rice stock controlled by Bulog, there are currently 1.3 million tons, then with the addition of new import assignments from the government, the amount is more than sufficient for distribution needs until next year in order to maintain the stability of rice prices in the community.