City has enough food stocks

City has enough food stocks

JAKARTA (JP): The city logistics agency will make available an extra 350,000 tons of rice to anticipate increased demand during the upcoming Idul Fitri holiday, an official said yesterday.

The head of the agency, Achmad Noor, said the total stock is enough to feed Jakartans for 20 months based on a demand of 2,250 tons of rice per day.

He added that the price of rice during the fasting month of Ramadhan will remain relatively stable, especially for the types of rice controlled by the board.

Achmad said the agency also has sufficient supplies of such staples as sugar, flour and cooking oil.

The agency's warehouse holds 69,000 tons of sugar and 96,000 tons of flour, enough for three months based on a monthly sugar demand of 23,000 tons per month and a flour demand of 32,000 tons per month.

He also said the agency's 90,000 tons of crude palm oil is enough to cover the city's demand of 500 tons per day.

"Basically, we have filled our warehouses with food staples," Achmad said while accompanying several city council members during a visit to Kramat Jati market in East Jakarta yesterday.

In a related development, the chairman of the council's commission B for economic affairs, Abdulgani Abdullah, said yesterday that the board has intensified its efforts to control the price of chili by distributing two tons of chili per day directly to 17 markets in the city since Jan. 24.

The first operation, carried out on Jan. 6, only distributed the chili to the city's central Kramat Jati market, which failed to control the price, which is normally Rp 9,000 per kilogram.

"The board has supplied a total of 42 tons of chili to the city's markets since Jan. 6," he said, adding that the price of chili at the Kramat Jati market has since decreased to 6,500 per kilogram.

He urged chili sellers not to take advantage of the chili confusion by overcharging consumers. (yns)