TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian Trade Minister Muhammad Lutfi ensured that the government would not lift the export ban on CPO or crude palm oil as it was still focusing on distributing bulk cooking oil in a bid to stabilize the commodity prices in domestic markets.

“So, we focus on the availability and affordability of bulk cooking oil. Once it is stable, then we will talk about the export relaxation,” said Lutfi on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, in Jakarta.

Indonesia has banned CPO exports since April 28, 2022. In line with this policy, the government targeted to lower the price of bulk cooking oil to the highest retail price (HET) of Rp14,000 per liter.

Lutfi said that one of the Trade Ministry’s efforts to suppress cooking oil prices is distributing the commodity through the Minyak Goreng Rakyat program. The program has been implemented in over 1,200 areas since before Eid al-Fitr or Lebaran.

“We're going to speed this up first. Hopefully next week, there will be 5,000 areas and 10,000 areas in the next two weeks at the first stage. From there, we will discuss it further,” said Lutfi.

The government also involved SOEs, including ID Food, in distributing bulk cooking oil. President Director of ID Food Frans Marganda Tambunan said the food holding firm distributed bulk cooking oil by using a digital platform dubbed Warung Pangan mobile app.

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