JAKARTA - The Ministry of Trade denies that packaged cooking oil is difficult to find in the market. As is known, people complain about the difficulty of getting cooking oil, even many mothers are lining up at retail stores to get cooking oil at an affordable price.
The Director General of Domestic Trade at the Ministry of Trade, Oke Nurwan, denied that cooking oil was scarce in the market. Okay stressed that a supply of cooking oil is available.
"This cooking oil is not rare, it is available. The only problem that is demanded by the community is which one is Rp. 14,000, which is Rp. 13,000, which is Rp. 11,500," he said in a virtual discussion, Tuesday, March 8.
No need to queue, said Oke, cooking oil is also available in e-commerce. However, he admitted, the cooking oil is available at a fairly high price.
"If there is a lot of high prices (cooking oil), in any market there will be high prices, even if you don't want to go anywhere online, high prices will exist," he said.
Oke said that since the determination of the Highest Retail Price (HET) by the Minister of Trade Muhammad Lutfi, the distribution of cooking oil has now been affected. He emphasized that currently the cooking oil distributed in the market is low-priced cooking oil.
This means that the HET for cooking oil should have been in effect in line with the stock of cooking oil that is easily available to the public.
"In principle, cooking oil, currently categorized as cooking oil, should be cheap cooking oil. But there are those who play around with this, both from the flow and from the price," he explained.
In seeking low prices, said Oke, since February 14, 2022, the Ministry of Trade has poured cooking oil supplies to 34 provinces. He said that he had poured 20 million liters per day and that cooking oil should have flooded the market.
"Assuming the need for cooking oil for micro, small and household industries is 327 million liters per month if normal, it means that since February 14 we have doubled 20 million liters, the flood should be. Because 20 million liters per day in 15 days we can already produce "This is 370 million liters," he said.
Okay, explaining that with this government policy, the price of cooking oil has managed to come down. However, the decline that occurred was not in accordance with the HET set by the Ministry of Trade.
The Ministry of Trade has set the highest retail price (HET) for cooking oil starting February 1, 2022, namely the price of bulk cooking oil at IDR 11,500 per liter, the price for simple packaged cooking oil at IDR 13,500 per liter, and the price for premium packaged cooking oil at IDR 14,000 per liter. .
"Now it has gone down. This means that this cooking oil has entered and it can be seen from the indications of the national average price which has touched Rp. 16,000 from the previous Rp. 20,000 per liter, but there are still those who take advantage of this situation," he said.
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