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Soy importers reject government's price ceiling as tempeh market in flux
Soybean prices hovered between $13 and $14 per bushel so far this year, compared to between $8 and $9 per bushel in the first half of 2020, according to Business Insider data.
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Tempeh artisan Noerhakim rubs cooked soybeans with a moldy hibiscus leaf, which is rich in the rhizopus olihosporus fungus, during the fermentation process. (JP/Anggara Mahendra)
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oybean importers are refusing to implement a government-ordered price ceiling as soaring United States soybean prices leave the Indonesian tempeh and tofu market in a state of flux.
Indonesian Soybean Importers Association (Akindo) chairman Yusan said on Jan. 20 that the Agriculture Ministry’s price ceiling of Rp 8,500 (61 US cents) per kilogram was not profitable compared to the average Rp 9,500 per kg that members paid to import the commodity.
Thus, only two importers, publicly listed PT FKS Multi Agro and PT Gerbang Cahaya Utama (GCU), have implemented the price ceiling thus far.
“This market operation to cap prices actually burdens importers. It does not make sense,” Yusan told lawmakers of Commission IV, which oversees agriculture, at a House of Representatives hearing in Jakarta.
Read also: Tempeh tipped as Indonesia’s next big export to United States
He added that imported soybean prices were also being bumped up by high international freight costs amid a global short supply.
The importer’s statement hits back at the Agriculture Ministry’s efforts to suppress soaring imported soybean prices that culminated in a shortage of tempeh and tofu – two staple Indonesian side dishes – as the Association of Tempeh and Tofu Producers Cooperatives (Gakoptindo) carried out a work strike from Jan. 1 to 3.
