Govt expects meat price to stabilize soon

August 20, 2015, 11.31 PM | Source: Antara
Govt expects meat price to stabilize soon


JAKARTA. The government has expressed confidence that meat prices will stabilize within one to three months. "We are confident that the prices of (meat) will stabilize in a couple of months," new Trade Minister, Thomas Lembong said at the State Palace on Thursday.

He said he and Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman, as well as military (TNI) commander General Gatot Nurmantyo and national police Chief General Badrodin Haiti had been summoned by President Joko Widodo to the palace to discuss food prices in the market.

"The President had invited the Minister of Agriculture, me, the national police Chief and the TNI commander to discuss the food issue. It is about coordinating strategy to overcome scarcity or price increases of several food commodities," he said.

Lembong said coordination among government agencies had been strong and if anyone was found involved in manipulating prices, he would be dealt with firmly. "The action would be taken immediately so that the food problem is not protracted," he said.

The minister also revealed that his office was also coordinating with the Ministry of Agriculture with regards to ensuring sufficient food supplies and controllable prices. "The President has asked us to seriously pay attention to the problem because it could affect inflation, which will eventually affect the rupiah exchange rate," he said.

Lembong said if the prices of meat dropped the government would cancel all plans to import beef. He said the import plan must be prepared well so that in case it was needed later, imported meat could be immediately distributed among the public. "The mechanism of cow imports takes time. It cannot be done within a week. So we must prepare it well. If the price is stable we can cancel it," he said.

The government plans to import 200,000 to 300,000 live cows during the fourth quarter of this year in a bid to create stability in beef prices.

During the third quarter of this year, imports totaled only 50,000 cows that were ready for slaughtering. The plan is still to be discussed as "we are still counting the stock," acting Foreign Trade Director General Karyanto Suprih said on Tuesday.

Suprih said the government was yet to decide whether the imports were to be made by the state run Board of Logistics (Bulog) or private companies. "We would want the government to do the importing itself through Bulog," he said.

Recently, Bulog was licensed to import 50,000 live cows ready for slaughtering, to keep the beef prices from soaring higher.

Soaring prices of beef have caused a big uproar in the country, with the police going after speculators. "We are still discussing it with Bulog. Bulog itself is yet to carry out its assignment of importing 50,000 live cows," Suprih revealed.

Beef prices have soared to as high as Rp140,000 per kilogram and have more than tripled price in neighboring countries. Suprih said it is also yet to be decided whether the 300,000 cows to be imported are feedlot cows or ones ready for slaughtering.

Editor: Hendra Gunawan

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