Food Commodity Prices Rise, KPPU Intensify Supervision

SURABAYA - The Regional Office of the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) IV Surabaya will immediately evaluate the increase in a number of commodities during Ramadan, by first intensifying supervision.

"In 2022, all of them have been given gifts that are not too sweet with the increase in several commodities and finally today with the increase in fuel prices," said Head of KPPU Regional Office IV, Dendy Rahmad Sutrisno in Surabaya quoted by Antara, Saturday, April 2.

Dendy said, in addition to fuel, a number of commodities that experienced a significant increase in East Java included chicken meat, chicken eggs, cooking oil and chilies.

On this condition, he said, KPPU will conduct more evaluation and supervision.

Dendy said that previously KPPU had evaluated the distribution of cooking oil, and found improper practices by business actors.

They, said Dendy, are trying to take advantage of the high cost of cooking oil by making the sale of cooking oil conditional.

"Alhamdulillah, as long as KPPU advocates from the findings, it can relatively change its behavior to conditionally stop selling cooking oil," he said.

KPPU's Director of Economics, Mulyawan Ranamanggala admitted that the increase in various food needs ahead of the fast was due to an increase in demand.

Since the last 6 years, he said, KPPU has been monitoring the market, and it can be seen that the increase is not significant.

"Except for chili, we recorded a significant increase ahead of this Ramadan, which was 27 percent. Then cooking oil experienced a significant increase of 9 percent," he said.

Next, beef experienced a significant increase from year to year ahead of Ramadan, an increase of about 0.30 percent, as well as eggs.

For this year, Mulyawan emphasized that the stock was quite stable, according to data from the Ministry of Trade which stated that the stock of various food commodities could be sufficient for between one to two months, except for chilies.

"Because chili production has decreased by 3 percent, so the increase in chili prices is expected to continue throughout the fasting month until Idul Fitri," he said.

Previously, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) of East Java recorded an increase in a number of food commodities which caused inflation in the region in March 2022 of 0.71 percent.

Commodities that experienced an increase and dominantly contributed to inflation, namely chicken eggs by 0.07 percent, cayenne pepper 0.05 percent, red chilies and cooking oil each by 0.04 percent.

Then 0.03 percent tempeh, 0.02 percent raw tofu and 0.02 percent wine, live chicken, tilapia fish, preserved tuna, young jackfruit, apples, shallots, garlic, cakes, sugar, tea, and clove cigarettes respectively. by 0.01 percent.