Indonesia's Supermarket Boom Offers New Opportunity for Traditional Markets
Back to the original post... This is typical of WB/UN type of reports where they are either too naive or too afraid to talk about corruption as the real problem.
As far as transporting produce, BY FAR the highest cost (which gets passed on to the consumer) is not the cost of fuel, the trucks or the drivers, but in fact extortion. Here's an excerpt of something I wrote on this subject:
...they (fruit association) pointed to the abnormally high cost of transportation, including a wide range of fees along the highways, some to dubious, but apparently legal, groups such as the Ministry of Transportation as well as the bizarre, pass-through-our-province/regency/village "tariffs". Furthermore, the drivers must pay even more to illegal road gangs, as well as the police and the army men, all of whom extort money at designated points along the route.
As far as transporting produce, BY FAR the highest cost (which gets passed on to the consumer) is not the cost of fuel, the trucks or the drivers, but in fact extortion. Here's an excerpt of something I wrote on this subject:
...they (fruit association) pointed to the abnormally high cost of transportation, including a wide range of fees along the highways, some to dubious, but apparently legal, groups such as the Ministry of Transportation as well as the bizarre, pass-through-our-province/regency/village "tariffs". Furthermore, the drivers must pay even more to illegal road gangs, as well as the police and the army men, all of whom extort money at designated points along the route.