President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) admitted that the price of rice could not yet decline drastically. However, according to him, the most important thing is that currently the price of rice has not increased again.
“Until now it has not been able to decrease drastically but at least it has not increased,” said Jokowi when giving a press statement after inspecting SMK Negeri 1 Purwakarta, Purwakarta Regency, West Java on Thursday (9/11/2023), as reported by an official statement.
The President explained that the increase in rice prices had been happening for quite some time.
Apart from that, he said, there were a number of other food commodities which also experienced price increases. One of them is chili which reaches IDR 100,000 per kilogram. “It’s chili that goes up high, but this is seasonal.
“If it’s a season like this for sure, it has already reached Rp. 100,000, but the other things I see are onions, garlic, eggs, all of which are in stable condition,” said Jokowi. “There must be so many commodities, then there are one or two that go up, but “The most important thing is that we will try hard on rice because that is our staple food,” he continued.
On this occasion, the Head of State also denied the opinion that the increase in rice prices was related to the provision of social assistance (bansos) rice.
According to Jokowi, the social assistance rice is intended for market operations. With the aim, if social assistance rice is given to the public, the price could decrease because demand in the market decreases. “Yeah no.
In fact, social assistance is like a market operation, so that by providing social assistance, public demand decreases. “If demand falls, supply remains constant, prices can fall, the theory is like that,” said Jokowi.
“But it hasn’t (drastically decreased). This is what we will do, there are market operations, then there is government reserve rice, 10 kilograms of rice food aid for 21.3 million people has also been provided,” he said. Jokowi then said that the government had made all efforts to reduce the price of rice. However, currently the selling price of rice on the international market has also increased.
Source: Kompas.com
