Legislator Warns Of Price Hikes After Floods

Samarinda, E Kalimantan, Jan 21 (ANTARA) - Legislator Ma`Mur Hasanuddin of the House of Representatives (DPR)`s Commission IV on agricultural affairs warned of possible price hikes following floods that affected production centers and logistics distribution in the country. In a press release issued by the Prosperous Justice Party faction in the DPR and made available to ANTARA here on Monday Ma`mur Hasanuddin asked the government to take speed actions in controlling the developments of prices and various food crop production centers. Food prices are expected to increase as a result of floods and weather conditions that disturbed production process in many parts of the country, the member of the PKS faction in the DPR said. He said the government should assure that stocks would be well available and distribution would be well-controlled so that there would be no spaces for price speculators to take advantage of the situation. "The Ministry of Agriculture, the state logistics board Bulog and the Trade Ministry should coordinate with security apparatuses and the Ministry of Transportation to give priority to supervising essential commodities in various distribution centers," he said. The Trade Ministry has noted a number of commodities whose prices had begun to increase, namely union whose price increased by 9.10 percent to Rp20,385 per kg, chicken by 2.60 percent to rp28,147 per kg, eggs by 2.32 pecent to rp18,921 per kg, red chili by 1.62 percent to Rp21,667 per kg, beef by 0.50 percent to Rp86,522 per kgk and rice by 0.31 percent to Rp8,339 percent. It was reported that many rice fields were submerged by flood waters, among others in 11 sub districts in Karawang District, West Java, on Friday. About 167 hectares of rice farms were inundated with thousands of houses also being affected. Karawang district Head Ade Swara said on Sunday that over 60 thousand residents have been evacuated in Karawang district due to floods in 80 villages, 23 districts. The district head said that the flood victims were evacuated to different safer places, makeshifts, refugee camps, mosques, house-shops and other shelters. Karawang`s disaster mitigation agency`s data showed that the floods which had taken place over the past few days submerged 18 thousand houses in 80 villages. he height of the flood waters ranged between 30 and 250 cm. But some areas have a flood water of 1.5 meters. As a results, a total of 68,776 residents, or 21,948 families were evacuated.