Jakarta – The government is committed to maintaining food price stability ahead of the 2024 Christmas and 2025 New Year holidays, by implementing a series of policies and anticipatory measures to prevent price spikes that could burden the public. The government, through a number of related agencies, has prepared a structured plan to ensure that food supplies remain available and prices remain affordable during the holiday period, which is often accompanied by increased public consumption.
Minister of Trade Budi Santoso said the government continues to intensively monitor the price movements of basic necessities such as rice, cooking oil, meat, chicken, eggs, as well as vegetables and fruits. Food price stability is a top priority to ensure that people can celebrate the holidays without having to worry about uncontrolled price spikes.
“To maintain price stability, we conduct regular price monitoring in all traditional and modern markets, as well as strengthen supervision of goods distribution. We will also expand the market operation and food distribution program through the Logistics Affairs Agency (Bulog),” said Budi.
Meanwhile, the Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas), Arief Prasetyo Adi said that the government will always ensure the availability of strategic staple foods ahead of Christmas 2024 and New Year 2025 for the community, as well as keep food prices from spikes.
“Ahead of Christmas and New Year, we will ensure that the stock of strategic staple foods is sufficient. Regarding prices, the government of course always maintains the price level so that it is not too low and not too high,” said Arief.
Arif also said that his party will continue to maintain stability so that farmers do not experience a downturn.
“The balance of prices for producers and consumers is the focus of the National Food Agency,” he said.
According to him, Indonesia’s condition is different from other countries that do not have farmers and ranchers, so fair prices must always be realized. For that, there needs to be a price balance between lines.
“So there is no need to worry about stock. In fact, we have to maintain several commodities so that their prices do not fall at the farmer level. That is our challenge in Indonesia which is different from other countries that do not have farmers and ranchers,” he explained.
Arief also stated that the policy of President Prabowo Subianto’s government is that farmers, livestock breeders and fishermen should not suffer because their products are not absorbed.
“Then the price at the consumer level must also be maintained. Everything must be at a reasonable level, so that there is a balance between prices at the farmer level and the community,” he explained.
Elsewhere, the Denpasar City Government (Pemkot) together with the Regional Inflation Control Team (TPID) are preparing various steps to keep prices and inflation stable ahead of Christmas 2024 and New Year 2025.
This will be a special concern for the Denpasar TPID which will prepare various anticipatory steps to maintain price stability and inflation. For this reason, the Denpasar Industry and Trade Service (Disperindag) continues to intensify monitoring of staple food prices.
Expert Staff for Human Resources (HR) and Public Welfare (Kesra) of the Denpasar Regional Secretariat (Setda), I Nyoman Artayasa said that the strategy taken was to optimize the availability of supply, price affordability, smooth distribution, and effective communication.
“Various economic recovery strategies have been implemented in an effort to encourage the economy of Denpasar City to continue to grow positively, especially at the end of the year and the big days of Christmas and New Year 2025,” said Artayasa.
For information, the stock of consumer sugar at the end of 2024 is estimated to still be at 1.478 million tons. For broiler chicken meat until the end of 2024, it is estimated that there will still be up to 283 thousand tons. Then the stock of broiler eggs at the end of 2024 is still 177 thousand tons. Beef and buffalo until the end of this year are estimated to still be 68 thousand tons.
The estimated stock until the end of 2024 for large chilies and cayenne peppers is still 53 thousand tons and 26 thousand tons respectively. For shallots 22.9 thousand tons and garlic 22.4 thousand tons. While cooking oil is at 336 thousand liters and soybeans 372 thousand tons.
With these steps, the government is trying to create conducive conditions for the community to celebrate Christmas and New Year with joy without the burden of heavy food prices. [*]
