Food Social Assistance And Handling Stunting Will Be Added To Maintain Purchasing Power In 2024

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto (photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government continues to strive to face global conditions that are still full of challenges and predictions of El Nino which must still be watched out for until the February 2024 period, one of which is by increasing food assistance and handling stunting.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said the government would continue to anticipate various aspects of the impact of global uncertainty on the domestic economy. In addition to maintaining price stability in the market, it will maintain public consumption, which of course has the largest contribution in GDP.

In an Internal Meeting related to the Distribution of Food Aid at the State Palace, Jakarta, on Monday, November 6. The government continues to strive to maintain people's purchasing power through the addition of social assistance and ensure the distribution is right on target. In addition, stunting management is also one of the focuses to be implemented immediately.

Airlangga conveyed that one of the challenges came from the need for additional budget from Bulog. Earlier it was stated that currently the condition of Bulog as of November 2, 2023, the stock is 1,442,945 tons. And the distribution of food aid in September was 94.95 percent and in October 94.89 percent, November at 18.45 percent, and we are still in December," he said in a statement written Tuesday, November 7.

Airlangga said that in the internal meeting, there was an additional budget requirement from Bulog, namely for the first stage it needed a fee of around Rp. 7.9 trillion, the second stage was Rp. 8.4 trillion, and there was an additional related to distribution and others of Rp. 2.8 trillion, bringing the total to Rp. 19.1 trillion.

In addition, it is necessary to accelerate the payment of Bulog bills by the Ministry of Finance, the meeting also discusses proposals related to incentives that the Government can provide, especially for exemption from rice import duties.

"We all know that the exemption from import duties with a specific tariff of IDR 450 per kg. We are doing incentives in the form of Government Borne Import Duty (BMDTP). Later the food agency will prepare it for BMDTP, which will later be given by the Ministry of Finance," he explained.

As for food assistance in 2024, President Joko Widodo has agreed that rice food assistance and stunting assistance will be provided for 6 months, namely from January to June 2024.

Airlangga said that 10 kg of rice assistance would be given to 22,004,077 Beneficiary Families (KPM).

As for stunting assistance, it will be given to 1,446,089 Families of Stunting Risk (KRS) from data from the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN). The stunting assistance amounted to Rp446,242 billion per quarter or around Rp892 billion in the first half of next year.