GOVT'S RICE STOCK IDEALLY SET AT ONE MILLION TONS

Jakarta, May 28 (ANTARA) - The government's rice stock (CBP) should ideally comprise at least one million tons whereas in reality the CBP now only consisted of 345,777 tons, the logistics agency chief said.

"We hope the CBP's volume will increase because the stock ideally should be one million tons," head of the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) Mustafa Abubakar said here Wednesday.

The early stock of rice was actually 348,730 tons, but 2,953 tons had been distributed as emergency assistance such as for the victims of natural disasters, he said.

Many circles believed that Indonesia's CBP was the lowest in the world, even it was incomparable to that of the Philippines, Abubakar said without mentioning the volume of the Philippine government's rice stock.

"The obstacle to provide one million tons of CBP is the government's restricted budget (to buy rice)," he said, adding that Bulog had so far prioritized purchasing rice from domestic farmers.

"If the domestic rice procurement is not enough, Bulog should have the government's permission to import rice in a bid to add to the stock," Abubakar said.

To date, the CBP was used to meet need for emergency assistance such as in the tsunami disaster in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) province and in Nias district in North Sumatra in 2005.