Rice Prices Are Still High, Minister Of Agriculture Ensures Market Operations Continue Until December

JAKARTA - Pressing the price of rice in the market which is still high above the Highest Retail Price (HET), the government ensures that it will continue the market operations program until the end of 2025.

This assurance was emphasized by the Minister of Agriculture (Mentan), Andi Amran Sulaiman after holding a bilateral meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Trade, Investment and Forestry of New Zealand, Todd McClay, at the Ministry of Agriculture Office, Jakarta.

"We have a lot of stock. We will operate the market until December," Amran told reporters, Thursday, August 7.

He said the total rice stock prepared by the government reached 1.5 million tons. Of this amount, around 1.3 million tons are allocated for market operations through the Food Supply and Price Stabilization (SPHP) program, while more than 300,000 tons are needed for social assistance (bansos).

"Until December we will operate the market. Usually our stock is not strong. Now we have prepared 1.3 million tons. Plus the social assistance is 300,000, which means 1.5 million tons. It's not a joke. It's amazing, right?" Amran said.

Amran also said that this step had never been done before on such a large scale.

"Indeed, we plan as long as prices go up, we continue to operate the market. So where used to be there was a market operation of 1.5 million tons? No, right? This is 1.3 million tons. Why do we have a lot of stock? So road market operations continue," he said.

Based on data from the National Food Agency (Bapanas), the realization of the rice SPHP as of August 5 has totaled 192,400 tons or 12.8 percent of the total target of 1.5 million tons. Then the realization of rice food assistance as of August 6, rice has been distributed as much as 300,300 tons or 82.15 percent of the total target of 365,500 tons.

Meanwhile, in the Panel of Food Prices, the average price of medium rice as of August 6 for Zone 1 was at IDR 13,923 per kilogram (kg). This decreased by 0.06 percent against the average price a week earlier which was at IDR 13,932 per kg.

In Zone 2, there was also a decrease of 0.15 percent from the previous week which was at Rp. 14,637 per kg to Rp. 14,615 per kg. The same is true in Zone 3 which fell 1.31 percent from Rp. 16,588 per kg to Rp. 16,370 per kg.