Ahead of Nataru, the Government Warns Business Actors Not to Play Prices

JAKARTA - Ahead of the National Religious Holiday (HBKN) Christmas 2025 and New Year 2026, the government reminds food business actors not to play prices at the consumer level in order to maintain price stability and people's purchasing power.

The Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) who is also the Minister of Agriculture Andi Amran Sulaiman emphasized that the government would not tolerate practices of violations of the Maximum Retail Price (HET) and the Sales Reference Price (HAP) that have been set. Supervision in the field will also be tightened through the involvement of the Food Task Force.

Therefore, Amran asked entrepreneurs not to take advantage of the Nataru momentum for unilateral profit by violating the price regulation.

"Please comply with HET. Entrepreneurs, convey to their networks that HET must be followed. Our appeal is enough, now is the time to act. And the food task force will immediately go down. There should be no more excuses for less production or no raw materials, because in fact our stock is abundant," he said in an official statement, Thursday, December 18.

Amran said the current national food supply condition is at a safe level.

Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), rice production in 2025 is estimated to reach 34.79 million tons or an increase of 13.6 percent compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, the government's rice stock managed by Perum Bulog is projected to reach 3.7 million tons by the end of 2025.

Apart from rice, the production of chicken meat and chicken eggs also showed encouraging indicators because of the surplus condition in supporting national needs.

In the National Food Balance Projection as of December 2025, there is a surplus of production against the consumption of pure chicken meat of 147,900 tons and 45,200 tons for pure chicken eggs.

Amran also highlighted the role of middlemen or middlemen who often take excessive profits in the distribution chain. He emphasized that the government was not hesitant to take firm action against business actors who violated the rules.

"Yesterday there was a fuss about rice, I have to explain here. The suspects are perpetrators, there are fake fertilizers, various kinds, including rice. There are now 75 suspects. We have revoked permits. Cooking oil, fertilizer, rice, and so on. If you are not firm, the government is being blamed," said Amran.

For information, based on the Food Price Panel, rice as a food commodity that often contributes to inflation has experienced a price decline in the last two weeks.

As of December 17, the average national price for medium rice in the range of IDR 13,559 per kilogram (kg) decreased by 0.01 percent from the previous week.

Likewise, premium rice fell 0.07 percent to Rp15,572 per kg.