Preventing the Impact of Inflation, Jokowi Officially Launches Rice Social Assistance until November

Photo: Doc. Food Agency

JAKARTA – President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) symbolically inaugurated the launch of social assistance (bansos) in the form of 210,000 tons of rice from this September to next November.

In his statement, the President revealed that the rice distributed to the public was Government Rice Reserves (CBP) which were in a number of warehouses at the Logistics Agency or Bulog.

"Every month approximately 210,000 tons of rice are released by Bulog for aid to the community and that has already started. September, October to November. The public should not be affected by the price of rice. "Our inflation is still maintained at 3.2 percent," he said in a written statement from Bogor, Monday, September 11.

According to the Head of State, this food aid is also expected to encourage control of the price of rice on the market.

“The figure of 210,000 tons is not a small number. It is addressed to 21.35 million recipients. After the retail and Cipinang markets were flooded with Bulog rice, then the community was given food assistance, this was like a market operation. So there's no need to worry," he stressed.

On the same occasion, Head of the National Food Agency (NFA) Arief Prasetyo Adi revealed that the launch of food aid by President Jokowi marked the rollout of this aid throughout Indonesia.

It was stated that the total food aid distributed reached 640,000 tons of rice. Arief believes that this assistance can put pressure on the price of rice in the market and be able to control the national inflation rate.

"As stated by the President, this is a government intervention to maintain people's purchasing power, especially low-income people, so that in the end it will have an impact on controlling inflation. "We also hope that this can reduce the rate of increase in rice prices," he said.

For your information, apart from food aid, food stabilization interventions were also carried out through the Food Supply and Price Stabilization (SPHP) program which reached 1.4 million tonnes. This figure includes the first phase of food assistance amounting to 640,000 tons which was completed last July