Indonesia strives to ensure continued supply of cooking oil

S Sumatra, March 5 (ANTARA) - Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartanto emphasized that the government had persistently endeavored to ensure continued supply of cooking oil in the community to address the current dearth. "We will work towards meeting the people's needs by maintaining the continuity of cooking oil supply," Hartarto remarked while monitoring market operations for cooking oil at the Alang-Alang Lebar Market in Palembang, Saturday. Currently, the government continues to encourage the availability of cooking oil at affordable prices in the community, he stressed. Market operation activities are also intensively conducted in every region to tackle the problem of scarcity by cooperating with cooking oil producers. "The government will continue to evaluate," he remarked. The minister later noted that the government had so far issued a Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) policy of 20 percent for the exporters of cooking oil raw materials and applied Domestic Price Bonds (DPO) for the price of domestic cooking oil raw materials. Through this policy, the government is optimistic that the domestic demand for palm oil as raw material for manufacturing cooking oil would be fulfilled. The public is also expected to purchase cooking oil according to the Highest Retail Price at Rp14,000 per liter for premium packaging and Rp13,500 per liter for simple packaging, and Rp11,500 per liter for bulk packaging. On the occasion, Hartarto, accompanied by Deputy Minister of Trade Jerry Sambuaga, also spoke with market traders and local residents regarding the scarcity of cooking oil. Cooking oil traders are upbeat about the price of basic necessities being affordable to increase the people's purchasing power. Specifically for cooking oil, traders complained about not having received supplies from distributors for about a month. "There is no cooking oil at a reasonable price. We have no supply from the distributor," cooking oil trader at Alang-Alang Lebar, Ali, stated. Meanwhile, Palembang residents made the most of the Cooking Oil Market Operation at the Alang-Alang Lebar Market since Saturday morning. The market operation was conducted through collaboration between the government and cooking oil producers. Residents, mostly women, lined up to purchase two liters of Fortune brand cooking oil worth of Rp27,000. Meanwhile, bulk oil was priced at Rp11,500 per liter, with a quota of around five liters per person. During this market operation, the government and producers provide seven thousand liters of simple packaged cooking oil and seven tons of bulk cooking oil according to the Highest Retail Price (HET) set by the government.