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Australian delegation to meet trade minister Monday for meat talks
An Australian business delegation will meet Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita on Monday to discuss Indonesia's trade policy on meat, which had affected the Australia beef industry after the government started importing buffalo meat from India.
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Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita (right) gives a speech at a seminar titled "Feeding the Nation: Challenges and Solutions. A Conversation with Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita" along with Rappler Indonesia managing director Uni Lubis and Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) deputy rector Hermanto Siregar on Oct. 22. (JP/Dandy Koswaraputra)
A
n Australian business delegation will meet Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita on Monday to discuss Indonesia's trade policy on meat, which had affected the Australia beef industry after the government started importing buffalo meat from India.
“I will meet them and explain the background of our policy,” Enggartiasto told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a seminar at the Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) in Bogor on Saturday.
Enggartiasto said the government had decided to import from India as an alternative to beef to stabilize meat prices, particularly for low and middle-income households.
He added that the Australian trade minister had offered Indonesia the opportunity to breed cows in Australia and fatten them in Indonesia, but the country preferred to develop local stockbreeding.
"I got a call from the Australian trade minister some days ago to offer stock breeding there, and I told him that our biggest problem was the high price. He said Australia was open to negotiations," Enggartiasto explained.
(Read also: Australia's Victoria state to invest in Indonesia's cold chain distribution)
In July, the Trade Ministry through the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) imported 10,000 tons of buffalo meat from India in an attempt to stabilize meat prices on the local market, which was currently around Rp 120,000 (US$9.20) a kilogram, compared with US$6 in Malaysia and Singapore.
The government, which has been importing beef from Australia and New Zealand for decades, has begun to import buffalo meat from disease-free zones in India to reduce Indonesia’s dependence on those two countries. (dan)
