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or Muslims, Ramadhan is a time of joy, a time to seek forgiveness through fasting and prayer, but this spiritual journey does not come cheap in Indonesia.

As many Indonesians have observed, Ramadhan is also a time when they have to dig deep into their pockets to cope with soaring food prices.

The highly anticipated “annual habit” has led both customers and vendors to question whether the government will be able to realize its much-vaunted ambition of reducing prices through a series of efforts, including by the importation of staple foods from overseas.

The government is set to import 27,400 tons of beef, 381,000 tons of sugar and 2,500 tons of shallots to meet local demand. It also seeks to stabilize the rice price, which usually fluctuates ahead of Idul Fitri.

The government hopes beef imports will force the price to Rp 80,000 (US$5.93) per kilogram (kg), down from between Rp 110,000 and Rp 125,000 per kg in markets currently, while imports of shallots will hopefully bring the price to Rp 25,000 per kg from almost Rp 40,000 per kg at the moment.

Trade Minister Thomas Lembong said that he hoped to maintain fair prices for commodities as the government sought to achieve coordination among ministries.

Vegetable vendor Ishak, however, is not convinced. He said he was already selling Brebes-grown shallots for Rp 40,000 per kg at his stall in Perumnas Klender Market in East Jakarta because he was paying Rp 35,000 per kg for them at the Kramat Jati wholesale market, also in East Jakarta.

“That does not include the cost of transportation from Kramat Jati to Perumnas Klender,” he said with irritation, adding that the long supply chain from Brebes, Central Java, to Jakarta added extra overhead.

Ishak is not the only one casting doubt on the government’s planned price cuts.

Hendy Maulana, a beef trader at the same Klender market, said President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s goal of getting beef prices down to Rp 80,000 per kg was “impossible”.

He argued that he had to pay Rp 108,000 per kg just to obtain chopped beef from a slaughterhouse in Cakung, East Jakarta. To compensate for the already high price, he sells his beef for Rp 110,000 to Rp 120,000 per kg.

Hendy blamed the high price on both the lack of supply and the long distribution chain.

“There is a long chain before the beef actually gets to the market after being imported from Australia. So it’s impossible to sell it at Rp 80,000 per kg when my initial lay-out is already Rp 108,000 per kg,” he explained.