KPPU: High Garlic Prices Due to Poor Quality Imports, Triggered by Weather
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22 May 2024 10:44 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) member, Eugenia Mardanugraha or also known as Jeni said the cause of expensive garlic prices. She said the poor quality of imported garlic from China was due to high intensity of rain.
"We gathered information on what caused the price of garlic to increase. According to information from garlic importers, now the commodity is bad so it costs quite a lot to store them," Jeni said at the KPPU Building, Central Jakarta on Tuesday, May 21, 2024.
As it arrive in Indonesia, wet onions can experience large shrinkage, so special treatment is needed so that the goods can be stored for a long time.
Member of the Indonesian Garlic and Tubers Entrepreneurs Association (Pusbarindo) Bang Bang Santoso said the quality of garlic was poor due to bad weather. In addition to the quality of garlic, he said, the realization of imports due to the issuance of Import Issuance Letters (SPIs) is still lacking because importers still have stocks of goods. The bad quality garlic can be stored for 6 months.
"Later in mid-June they can import good quality and we are optimistic that the price will drop," Bang Bang said at the KPPU Building, Central Jakarta on Tuesday. "Weather (cause the drop in quality of garlic). In 2023, the weather was not good when they were drying because it rained, so the quality was not good."
The import permit granted by the government, he estimates, is around 50 thousand tons per month or in a year around 500 to 600 thousand tons.
The current garlic stock, came from the Chinese harvest in 2023. Bang Bang plans to import again in mid-June. "If we import, we have to calculate, we import a lot of good quality. If we import too much bad quality, it will have to be discarded," he said.
Apart from the weather, the strengthening US dollar exchange rate has also caused the price of garlic to rise, since the trade is in US dollars.
When asked about the condition of plantations in China, whether they use modern agriculture. Bang Bang emphasized that his organization did not check the plantations.
Quoted from data from the National Food Agency (Bapanas) on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, the national average price of garlic reached IDR 42,860 per kilogram. If you look at the data for a week, the price is stable at around IDR 40,000 per kilogram.
DESTY LUTHFIANI
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