Good Or Bad News? New Cooking Oil Prices Will Drop In February 2022

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JAKARTA - The price of cooking oil has continued to increase in recent times. In fact, the price has skyrocketed from the highest retail price (HET) set by the government at Rp11 thousand per liter, to now above Rp20 thousand per liter. CORE Indonesia predicts that the price of cooking oil will only fall in February next year.

CORE Indonesia researcher Dwi Andreas predicts that the price of cooking oil will continue to climb until January 2022. However, the price decline will occur in February 2022.

"There is no need to worry because in February and March the price will be corrected," he said at the 'CORE Year-End Economic Reflection' event, Wednesday, December 29.

Furthermore, Andreas explained that the current high price of cooking oil is due to a lack of supply due to the large increase in demand for palm oil from abroad. This causes business actors to take advantage of rising commodity prices to make profits.

Andreas appealed to the public not to worry because next year the price will fall again. Considering that soybean production in Brazil will experience a big harvest, so the need for palm oil will decrease.

Not only cooking oil, said Andreas, the current increase in chili prices will reach its peak in January. So, in February 2022, chili prices will start to fall.

"Starting at the end of January, farmers will start harvesting, so in February prices will start to fall," he said.

Andreas explained that the increase in chili prices was caused by the natural La Nina phenomenon which caused many farmers to fail to harvest. While the demand at the end of the year is always high so the laws of economics apply.

Then, Andreas said the same thing also happened to the commodity of eggs. He said the current increase in egg prices is reasonable because until last November egg production was very abundant and prices had fallen.

Even so, said Andreas, the increase in egg prices will also subside entering February. The price will decline until its peak in April and then will rise again after that.

"Indeed, because the cycle is like that," he said.