TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Vice President Jusuf Kalla (JK) ensured that there would be no rice imports this year because the supply and price are guaranteed to be safe.
“The import will be possible if the stock is below 1 million tons in Bulog (State Logistics Agency) and the price increases 10 percent. The current condition does not meet the requirements for imports,” he said at the Vice President office, Jakarta, Tuesday, October 23.
Kalla said that currently, Bulog stored 2.2 million tons of rice stock. The price of rice was also observed to be stable and it was estimated that it would not increase until the end of the year.
Read: Indonesia has No Plan to Import Rice: VP Kalla
JK said that the rice supply was also predicted to be surplus until the end of the year. He referred to the data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) that predicted the rice surplus of 2.85 million tons in 2018. This calculation was carried out with the latest methodology from the collaboration of BPS, LAPAN, BIG, and the Ministry of Agrarian and Spatial Planning.
The estimation of surplus is calculated from the projected production of milled dry grain (MPD) of 56.54 million tons, equivalent to 32.42 million tons of rice until the end of the year. The total of rice consumption is assumed to be 29.57 million tons per year.
However, the data is lower than the projection of the Ministry of Agriculture that predicted a surplus of 13.03 million tons during 2018. The estimation is calculated from the target of grain production of 80 million tons or 46.5 million tons of rice. The national-level total rice consumption is estimated at only 33.47 million tons.
VINDRY FLORENTIN
