JAKARTA - Chairman of the Association of Indonesian Food and Beverage Producers (Gapmmi) Adhi S. Lukman said the weakening of the rupiah exchange rate against the US dollar would have an impact on the price of raw materials in the food and beverage or food and beverage industry.
The reason, said Adhi, is that the raw materials for the Mamin industry in the country are still very dependent on imports.
"This weakening is indeed for makin to be quite a problem because frankly our raw materials are still importing a lot. That is the problem," said Adhi when met at the Ministry of Industry office, Tuesday, June 25.
Adhi said, based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the prices of raw materials for the four main commodities of the food and beverage industry, such as wheat, milk, salt and sugar, had penetrated about US$9 billion.
"If it weakens according to banks, year to date, that's around 6.5 percent. If 6.5 percent of the Rp. 16,000, right, it means around Rp. 800, Rp. 800 multiplied by 9 billion US dollars, only four main commodities. That's around Rp. 500 trillion, yes, consumption," he said.
Therefore, Adhi asked the government to intervene so that the rupiah exchange rate against the US dollar does not continue to weaken. "Departing from that, the government must survive, it should not be broken again. If this passes again it will be very heavy," he said.
Even though the rupiah is weakening, Adhi said there has been no increase in selling prices in the food and beverage industry. Because, he said, the food and beverage industry has made changes. One of them is in terms of packaging.
"This is what we do so that we can still maintain purchasing power, our selling price can last," he said.
According to Adhi, for the big food industry, it is very difficult to immediately increase the selling price because it requires a very long process.
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"What I see is that (Mamin's industry) is large, on average, it does not increase prices. Because if the middle and large price increases, the process is usually long," said Adhi.
Furthermore, Adhi said that in the midst of the current weakening of the rupiah, demand from the food and beverage industry is still quite high. Meanwhile, in the first quarter of 2024, the processed export food industry still grew 5 percent.
"In the first quarter of 2024, we at the export processing food still grew 5 percent," he added.
Meanwhile, based on data from Bank Indonesia's Jisdor exchange rate, the rupiah exchange rate was closed at a price of Rp. 16,431 per US dollar on Monday, June 25.
The current position of the rupiah is the weakest since April 6, 2020 or the last four years since the COVID-19 pandemic.
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