Bulog has 2.38m tons of rice in warehouses

JAKARTA (JP): The State Logistics Agency's (Bulog) rice stocks stood at 2.38 million metric tons at the end of October, according to a statement issued on Thursday by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The statement said that the agency procured 191,196 tons of rice domestically during the January-October period of this year.

The agency also imported 600,000 tons of rice in October, but the report did not identify the origin of the imports or the cumulative amount of rice that had been imported during the January-October period.

Earlier this year, the government said that it planned to import at least 4.1 million tons of rice in the 1998/1999 fiscal year, which ended in March, to meet the supply shortage resulting from a months-long drought.

The statement said that the agency sold 2.6 million tons of rice through its market operation during the first 10 months of this year.

It also reported that the average price of medium-quality rice stood at Rp 2,828 (36 US cents) per kilogram in October, drop by 6.02 percent compared to the average price in September.

The agency held 520,135 tons of sugar in its stocks at the end of October.

It procured 276,275 tons of sugar domestically and imported 1.29 million tons during the first 10 months of this year.

Bulog earlier predicted that Indonesia would need to import 1.3 million of sugar this year if domestic output reached 1.8 million tons. Annual consumption in the country is a staggering 3.1 million tons.

The statement also said that Bulog sold 1.72 million tons of sugar through its market operation during January-October period of this year.

It also said that the average price of sugar in the domestic market had fallen by 2.73 percent to Rp 3,784 per kilogram compared to last month's average price.

The government removed Bulog's monopoly to import and distribute wheat, wheat flour, soybeans, garlic and sugar earlier this year to meet a reform commitment agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The only monopoly retained by the agency was on the politically sensitive commodity rice. (gis)