Cement prices still high at retail stores

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)