Government reviews rice imports

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has scaled down estimates of its rice imports for this year as fears over possible severe drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon have waned.

Chief of State Logistics Agency (Bulog) Widjanarko Puspoyo told reporters on Monday after a Cabinet meeting that the agency's rice imports for this year would probably be less than one million tons against an initial target of 1.1 million tons.

"We have thus far imported 550,000 tons (of rice) and we estimate the imports will be less than 1 million tons by the end of this year," Widjanarko said.

Last year, the agency imported 1.5 million tons.

Aside from the agency, private companies also imported rice for the domestic market, but no data is available about their imports.

The agency was recently urged by several parties to import more than its initial target of 1.1 million tons amid fears that the drought, which has hit several parts of the country over the past several months, could be long and detrimental to the country's rice fields.

Some parties feared that the drought was a sign that the El Nino weather phenomenon, which hit the country in 1997 and caused a drop in rice output, would return to the country this year.

But, Coordinating Minister of the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro Jakti said the state-owned Meteorology and Geophysics Agency had stated that there was little chance that El Nino weather patterns would occur this year.

Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih said the country's unhusked rice output reached 50.8 million tons and he was optimistic that the initial output target of 52 million tons for this year would be achieved.

Fifty-two million tons of unhusked rice is equal to 30 million tons of husked rice.

After the current dry season, the rainy season is expected to start in September, Bungaran said.

Indonesia imports rice from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, India and China.