More Rice Prices? Check Out BPS's Explanation On The Causes

JAKARTA - The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) found an increase in inflation in one of the important food components, namely rice throughout last month.

Head of BPS Margo Yuwono said that the annual year on year (yoy) inflation rate in September 2022 was 2.56 percent.

This figure is higher when compared to the July 2022 period which was 1.13 percent.

"This increase, although thin, will have a considerable impact on inflation (consumer price index/IHK) of 0.08 percent," he said when holding a press conference on Monday, October 3.

According to Margo, the increasing inflation rate was formed due to the increase in the selling price of rice in the market.

In his explanation, there are at least two important factors that are the source of the more expensive rice prices.

"This inflation is more due to the factor of increasing the cost of transportation (distribution) and the daily wages of porters," he said.

Not only that, the Head of BPS also revealed that even rice production centers in Indonesia make supplies to other regions more dynamic.

Not all provinces are places for rice production. Therefore, there is an increase in prices from the distribution that caused inflation," he said.

In general, the contribution of food inflation was recorded at 1.57 percent of the JCI inflation last month which was 5.95 percent. Two other sectors are energy inflation at 1.51 percent and inflation in other sectors at 2.87 percent.

Energy components experienced a major spike in inflation in September. The high inflationary pressure on the energy component was driven by an increase in gasoline and diesel prices after the fuel price adjustment," concluded Margo.