Trade Minister: Staple Food Prices are Now Stable

INDUSTRY.co.id - Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan has said that staple food supply is sufficient with stable price.

“This is the task given by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, to maintain the price and supply of staple foods,” he said in a press statement on 100 Days Performance, Sunday (09/25), at the Office of Ministry of Trade, Jakarta.

He went on to say that the price of bulk cooking oil, which previously increased, is now stable with the highest retail price of Rp14,000 per liter and is available in all provinces throughout the country. On September 21, 2022, the national average price of bulk cooking oil was even recorded at Rp13,800 per liter. In addition, cooking oil under the MINYAKITA brand is available in 33 provinces, including East Nusa Tenggara, Papua, and West Papua at prices according to the highest retail price.

“I promised the President that within one month I will lower the cooking oil price so that it is affordable for the people. Alhamdulillah, within two weeks of my assignment, the price of simple packaged cooking oil began to drop,” said Zulkifli.

Not only cooking oil, the price of other staple foods also experienced a significant decrease compared to that in June 15, 2022. The prices of ten staple foods that fell down were beef, large red chilies, curly cayenne pepper, red cayenne pepper, broiler meat, shallots, garlic, simple packaged cooking oil, granulated sugar, and bulk cooking oil.

“So the prices of staple foods are stable to this day. However, there is a slight increase now for rice,” he added.

Previously, in the Cabinet Secretariat Podcast (Podkabs) Episode 7, the Minister explained that one of the keys to controlling the prices of staple foods is to know the problems down to the micro level, not just macro.

“You have to go down, go to the market to hear what’s really going on, see the root problems, listen to the public’s complaint, [find information on] the supply chain, the distribution chain, and others. This [policy] can indeed be effective if we understand the root problems. Only then we can make effective decisions,” said Zulkifli at the Podkabs.