Gejok Harga Berah Dominasi Inflasi Awal Year, Influence Of Tipis Stock?

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) stated that rice commodities were the main contributor to inflation in January 2023 with a contribution of 0.07 percent of the total monthly IHK inflation of 0.34 percent (month to month/mtm).

Head of BPS Margo Yuwono explained that rice inflation in January 2023 was 2.34 percent or higher than December 2022 which was 2.30 percent.

"Compared to January 2022, it has increased. At that time, rice inflation was only 0.94 percent with a share of 0.03 percent," he said when holding a press conference on Wednesday, February 1.

According to Margo, rice inflation is influenced by price fluctuations that occur in the market. He reported that the price of wholesale rice rose 2.51 percent from Rp11,363/kg in December 2022 to Rp11,648/kg in January 2023.

Likewise, rice prices at the retail level rose 2.34 percent to Rp10,970/kg in January 2023 from the previous Rp10,604/kg in December 2022.

"Strengthening prices also occurs in harvested dry grains and milled dry grains," he said.

Margo added that there were a number of factors that made the prices of staple food rise at the beginning of the year.

"This year's price increase which was much higher than last year was due to increased production costs, such as labor wages and also the impact of rising fuel prices," he said.

In addition to rice commodities, commodities that contributed greatly to last month's inflation were red chilies, fresh fish, cayenne pepper, and filter kretek cigarettes.

In previous editorial reports, the rice reserves for Bulog in December 2022 were only around 400,000 tons. This amount is far below the government's rice reserves (CBP) target of 1.2 million tons.

As a result, the government finally gave Bulog the green light to import 500,000 tons of medium rice this year.