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MACROECONOMICS - JAKARTA. Indonesia may extend its rice handout programme further to March 2024 amid concerns over supply disruptions as drought linked to the El Nino weather pattern hit harvests, the country's food procurement agency Bulog said.
Bulog has been giving 10 kilograms of rice to 21.3 million lower-income households every month in Indonesia to help them cope with rising prices of the staple, in a programme originally set to run from September to November.
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The government has recently extended the handout to December, and is now mulling a second extension.
Bulog said that its rice stock will be sufficient for the programme as it has received a mandate to import an additional 1.5 million metric tons of rice, on top of 2.3 million-ton import quota issued earlier this year, the agency's chief Budi Waseso said in a statement late on Wednesday.
Its rice stock now stood at 1.48 million tons, he said.
"Bulog has been assigned to import 1.5 million tons more, and we have contracted 700,000 tonnes for this year," he added.
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The extension of the rice handout programme to December is part of President Joko Widodo's 13.4 trillion rupiah ($842.24 million) policy package launched this week to support growth in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
Other measures in the policy package include a tax incentive for homebuyers and cash handouts for poor families.
Indonesia's 2023 rice output is expected to fall 2% to 30.90 million tons, according to its statistics bureau's estimate.
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Authorities have warned that there could be a delay in the upcoming rice planting season as El Nino delays the start of the rainy season.
