Bali Governor Asks City Government Officials Or Regency Governments To Plant Food Materials On Provincial Government Land To Suppress Inflation

Photo: Doc. Antara

JAKARTA - Acting (Pj) Governor of Bali Sang Made Mahendra Jaya asked ranks in districts/cities to take advantage of provincial government land to plant staple crops as one of the steps to suppress inflation.

"Again, remind us to simultaneously plant foodstuffs throughout Bali, by using various foodstuffs and using land owned by the provincial government, the right to use, so that between districts can exchange foodstuffs needed by their citizens," he said, in a press statement received a follow-up from Antara. Saturday 4 May.

At the High Level Meeting (HLM) of TPID, Bali Province revealed that the Bali inflation rate in April 2024 on an annual basis (yoy) was 4.02 percent, where there was an increase of 3.67 percent.

The Bali Provincial Government sees this condition as being caused by the accumulation of a number of religious holidays that coincided in the same month.

In addition, the annual inflation rate has become high due to the increase in prices due to the limited number of commodities, therefore a solution related to the scarcity of basic commodities is needed.

It was further found that the highest inflation was recorded in Tabanan Regency at 4.42 percent, followed by Badung Regency at 4.15 percent, Denpasar City at 3.96 percent, and Buleleng at 3.69 percent.

The four cities of the Consumer Price Index (JCI) are outside the national inflation target of 2.5 to 1 percent, so according to the Acting Governor of Bali, serious attention is needed.

"With the current conditions, further attention is needed to control inflation and maintain economic stability in Bali, low and stable inflation is a prerequisite for sustainable economic growth which ultimately provides benefits for improving people's welfare," he said.

According to him, by allowing high and unstable inflation to have a negative impact on the socio-economic condition of the community, where real income will continue to decline so that the standard of living from the community will decrease.

Therefore, he asked districts/cities to utilize the Bali Provincial Government's land to be planted with basic commodities as a way to maintain food price stability and control the inflation rate in Bali.

There are 4K strategies as an effort to control the Bali inflation rate which is used as a reference to remain low and stable, namely maintaining price affordability, supply availability, smooth distribution and effective communication between regions.

Head of BPS Bali Endang Retno Sri Subiyandani emphasized the importance of suppressing inflation by revealing data that the highest contributor to inflation was the food, beverage and tobacco group.

"Five commodities with the largest contribution to monthly inflation are shallots, tomatoes, broiler meat, rice, cooking oil, and green mustard," he said.