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Sugar price ceiling of Rp 12,500 per kg effective in March
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Field workers harvest sugarcane in Malang, East Java. (JP/Aman Rochman)
T
he Trade Ministry will impose the price ceiling of sugar at Rp 12,500 (93 US cents) per kilogram starting in March, a top official has said.
The ministry’s domestic trade director general Oke Nurwan said the government had issued import licenses to nine sugar producers to import 400,000 tons of raw sugar.
“Next month we will implement our plan so that it will help the sugar price [go] down,” said Oke in Jakarta on Wednesday as reported by kompas.com, adding that the raw sugar would be manufactured by local producers before being handed over to the distributors.
(Read also: Traders say imposing price ceiling on sugar is unfair)
He said the government would not regulate the prices from distributors to traders in markets and stressed that the sugar prices to consumers should be Rp 12,500. “The most important thing is that the traders in markets do not suffer from any losses,” Oke added.
Previously, chairman of the Indonesian Market Traders Association, Abdullah Mansuri, said the imposed price ceiling for the market traders was unfair because they had not been involved in the decision-making process.
Abdullah said the traders should have been informed about the distribution of margins – more specifically, the price at the retail level compared to the price at the wholesale level.
“It is unfair for us to have to implement the agreement without any explanation about the distribution of margins,” said Abdullah recently.
Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita said the decision was made to help control the price of sugar. (bbn)
