Cement prices still high at retail stores
JAKARTA (JP): Cement prices, spurred by a lack of supply, remained high at retail businesses in the greater Jakarta area on Saturday.
Prices of cement, which peaked mid-last week at Rp 12,000, the highest level for the last three years, dropped slightly to between Rp 8,000 and Rp 11,000 per 40-kilogram sack at building material stores in Jakarta, Depok and Bogor over the weekend.
But the owners of some of the building material stores, who were concerned about more possible rises in the price of the main component of construction in the capital, are taking measures to avoid financial losses by monitoring price fluctuations carefully.
However, no reports have surfaced on whether the skyrocketing cement prices have attracted waves of buying by building store material owners and users as construction companies gear up for the end of the year, when prices of building materials tend to increase.
The owner of the Kencana building material store on Jl. Raya Sawangan, Depok, a suburb south of Jakarta, said she was trying to deal with the shortage by only selling cement to buyers who were purchasing other building materials, such as sand, bricks or gravel. "We are not selling cement to anyone unless they also buy other materials."
She added that she sold cement at Rp 10,000 per 40-kilogram sack, or Rp 2,000 less than on Wednesday and Thursday last week.
Owners of building material stores in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, have complained that the lack of an adequate supply of cement has decreased the daily sales of other building materials by 30 percent.
"Cement is just like rice to people, a development project is automatically stopped when there is no cement," A Tjong, the owner of the Cahaya Kita building material store in Pasar Minggu, said.
He added that sometimes he had to buy cement from other stores to accommodate the demand at his shop.
"I have never limited the number of sacks of cement I will sell to people, but I will refuse to sell to any customer who wants to buy all of my stock because I have to reserve some for my regular customers," Iwan Sunarya, the owner of the Kawi Jaya store, in West Jakarta, said.
The owner of the Bintang Baru material store on Jl. Otto Iskandardinata, East Jakarta, "divides" his cement stocks equally among the shop's regular customers.
"You all will only get 30 sacks each because we have only received 200 sacks from the distributors," the owner told the customers when the cement truck arrived.
Order
She explained that she learned from the delivery order documents that her store would only receive 200 sacks, meaning she would have to divide them among seven customers who had been waiting since early in the morning.
"Come on now, you should give me more than that because it's not enough and our project will be delayed," Jajang, a customer, who demanded that he be allowed to buy 75 sacks of cement, said.
However, the owner explained that she could only give 30 to him and most of the others, with only 20 sacks going to one customer because the distributor was only sending her 200 sacks.
The owner of the Subur store in East Jakarta said that there is no limitation on the amount of cement a retailer can order from a distributor.
"But it's no use to order too many sacks because there are no stocks in the distributor's warehouse," Suhardi said.
Distributors admit that they cannot stockpile cement in their warehouses because as soon as it arrives, it is sold out instantly.
Rizal Ramli, chairman of the Advisory Group on Economics, Industry and Trade (Econit) has stated that the price increases for cement are not caused by high production, costs or the imbalance between supply and demand, but by oligopolistic practices by certain cement producers.
Legislator Sunaryo Hardade yesterday urged the government to control cement prices.
He proposed that Commission VI, which oversees economic and development affairs, immediately hold a coordinating meeting with related commissions in the House of Representatives to discuss the matter.(yns/has/03)