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Indonesia backpedals on plan to halt sugar imports
In a reversal from a plan announced in December, the senior food minister has said the government will continue to import sugar as it looks to boosting domestic production, though the planned import ban would be imposed on rice, corn and salt.
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State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Erick Thohir (left) speaks with an employee of sugar company Industri Gula Glenmore (IGG), owned by state-owned plantation company PTPN XII, during a visit to the company’s warehouse facility in Banyuwangi, East Java, on Sept. 18, 2021. (State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministry/Public relation teams)
T
he government is putting off plan announced late last year to temporarily halt importing sugar this year and will focus instead on improving agricultural infrastructure to boost domestic production, Coordinating Food Minister Zulkifli Hasan has said, adding that the reversal was based on an instruction from the President.
“We will first try to improve irrigation and other things, we will prohibit rice imports, [and] we have decided in a meeting that we will not import corn [or] salt. Sugar will be allowed,” Zulkifli said on Wednesday in Jakarta at CNBC Indonesia’s Economic Outlook 2025 event, as quoted by detikFinance.
He told reporters on the same day that the country would continue importing sugar amid concerns that a shortage could drive up domestic prices for the commodity.
Read also: Govt to slash corn, salt, sugar import quotas for 2025
National Food Agency (Bapanas) head Arief Prasetyo Adi said on Feb. 17 that the government had opted to import sugar due to a rise in prices despite sufficient domestic production.
The nation’s sugar reserves stand at 4.5 million tonnes while consumer demand for sugar reached 250,000 tonnes, said Arief, who estimated the reserves were enough only for the next five months.
He added that a portion of the reserves would be released in the event sugar prices increased as farmers waited for the main harvest season of sugarcane in April and May.
