Premium Mahal Rice Prices, Retail Entrepreneurs Can't Follow HET's Limits

Rice Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Modern retail entrepreneurs admit that rice prices are increasingly expensive. This makes the regulation on the highest retail price (HET) of premium rice that has been in effect so far, can no longer be followed.

Moreover, premium rice sold through modern retail is now exceeding the HET limit set by the government.

Chairman of the Indonesian Retail Forum Association, Roy Nicholas Mandey, confirmed this. He said, the current price of rice cane is expensive. This is because it has not yet entered the rice harvest period.

Furthermore, Roy said a significant increase in rice prices in modern retail began in February 2023.

"The reality is like that (up). Because the rice has not yet been harvested and the sugar cane is also expensive. (Going) only at the end of this month," he said when met at the meeting of the Indonesian Modern Market Expansion Association at Balai Sudirman, Jakarta, Thursday, February 23.

For your information, so far the price of rice that can still fully follow government regulations, namely Bulog rice, both medium and premium. Meanwhile, not all private producers can be sold according to the HET.

The current HET of premium rice is IDR 12,800 per kg or IDR 64,000 per kg in 5 kilograms (kg) which is usually sold in retail. This price applies to zone I.

However, due to the increasingly high price of rice, the price of premium rice in modern retail received by consumers is also higher.

Roy said that government regulations should still be carried out by perpetrators of modern extortion as well as retailers. However, Roy said the current conditions are different.

"But, because of the current situation, everyone is trying to minimize (increase) even though the reality has not happened but is in the process of minimizing it," he said.

Even so, Roy believes that the price of rice in modern retail stores will fall when the main harvest has started, which is projected to start in March-April 2023.

"It can go down, once the harvest is good. Once the supply is abundant, the demand will still go down. It is predicted after harvest. Hopefully before the Idul Fitri HBKN has dropped, one week before HBKN," he said.