Minister Of Trade M. Lutfi; Indonesia Competes For Imports With China, Soybean Prices Will Still Be Expensive

Minister of Trade, M. Lutfi. (Photo: Doc. Of the Presidential Secretariat)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Trade (Minister of Trade) Muhammad Lutfi said that the increase in soybean prices will continue for the next few months or at least until June 2002. He made this prediction during a virtual press conference earlier in the year today.

According to the Trade Minister, the La Nina weather factor in South America caused two major soybean producing countries in the world, namely Brazil and Argentina to experience production disruptions.

"We see that prices will continue to strengthen until next May," he said, Monday, January 11.

Meanwhile, other soybean producing countries in the world, namely the United States (US) were not too affected by the weather disturbance. This caused a number of soybean importing countries to fight for supply from the US which made the law of supply and demand perfect, aka driving up prices.

As a result, Indonesia has a little trouble getting these raw materials because it has to compete with other giant importers such as China.

Separately, the General Chairman of the Indonesian Tofu Tempe Producers Cooperative Association (Gakoptindo) Aip Syarifuddin confirmed the soaring conditions of soybean prices in the last few months. He said, Indonesia had difficulties in supplying soybeans domestically because China's demand was much greater than before.

Aip noted, China actually only brought in about 75 million tons of soybeans from the US every year. At the end of last year, this demand jumped to 75 million tons of soybeans because their traditional markets, namely Brazil and Argentina, experienced production disruptions.

"We even heard the news that the US trade authority said that China increased the demand for soybeans by up to 100 million tons," said Aip.

As previously reported, the national average consumption of soybeans touched 2.8 million tons. Of this amount, about 92 percent are met by foreign supplies, mostly imported from the United States (US).

According to VOI's monitoring, in November 2020 the price of soybeans was found to be at the level of 11.92 US dollars per bushels. A month later, the price crept up to 12.5 US dollars per bushels.

The world food organization FAO also agrees with this. In FAO records, the price of soybeans is believed to have jumped 6 percent to 461 US dollars per ton from the previous 435 US dollars per ton.

Meanwhile, for the domestic retail level, previously imported soybeans were marketed at a price of IDR 7,000 per kilogram, now it has touched a value of IDR 9,000 per kilogram.