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Govt to set price floors and ceilings for staple foods
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Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman (left) and Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita talk to journalists in a press conference at the Agriculture Ministry in Jakarta on Aug. 8. (thejakartapost.com/Anton Hermansyah)
T
he government will set minimum and maximum prices – technically referred to as price floors and ceilings – for staple foods as part of efforts to prevent volatility in the prices of the country’s basic commodities.
Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita said the measure was taken to trim the wide margin between selling prices set by the farmers to distributors and those set by distributors to market vendors.
"The ceiling price will be set within a week," he said in Jakarta on Monday, adding that the benchmark prices would primarily focus on rice, onions, sugar and beef.
The government will also cut the distribution chain of foods by delivering the commodities directly to a central distributor that will distribute them to traditional markets. A pilot project will be applied in Jakarta and is expected to cut four to five links out of the chain.
Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman pointed out that onions were sold to distributors at between Rp 14,000 (US$1.07) to Rp 16,000 per kilogram, but their selling price at markets reached Rp 40,000 per kg.
Likewise, the production cost of rice is only Rp 6,800 per kg, but consumers have to shell out around Rp 11,000 to Rp 12,000 per kg. "The disparity is almost 100 percent. It must be resolved. It won’t be easy, will take a lot of hard work," he added. (ags)
