Bulog sells 2.5m tons of rice

JAKARTA (JP): The State Logistics Agency (Bulog) sold 2.5 million tons of rice as part of a nationwide market operation to stabilize prices during the 1997/1998 fiscal year, which ends this month.

Bulog chairman Beddu Amang said yesterday that rice sold by the agency during this financial year was the most it had sold during the last 30 years. Droughts last year lead to unusually low national rice production.

In previous years, the most Bulog has had to sell was 800,000 tons of rice. Bulog now sells 400,000 tons each month, the same as it sold during the entire 1996/1997 financial year.

"We sold 400,000 tons of rice each month from December last year to March this year," Beddu said after meeting with Vice President B.J. Habibie at Merdeka Selatan Palace.

Beddu said that the government will have to import a further 3.3 million tons of rice this year because production is not expected to improve. (prb)