Prabowo Wants Minyakita Fully Managed by State-Owned Enterprises, Minister Explains Why

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The government plans to overhaul the management of the Minyakita brand of cooking oil for the people, handing full control to state-owned food enterprises such as Bulog and ID Food. This move is said to be a direct instruction from President Prabowo Subianto to address various recurring issues, from price increases to supply shortages in the market.

Minister of Agriculture and Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Amran Sulaiman stated that the policy was prompted by the unreasonable price of cooking oil in Indonesia. This is despite the country being the world’s largest producer of crude palm oil (CPO) and a major global supplier of cooking oil raw materials.

“We have been discussing this cooking oil issue for several days. Minyakita is an anomaly. Why? We supply cooking oil to the whole world; we are the largest cooking oil producer globally, with 60 percent of the world’s CPO raw material located in Indonesia. Yet our prices are rising, so this is a market anomaly,” Amran said during a Regional Inflation Control Coordination Meeting at the Ministry of Home Affairs on Monday (15/6/2026).

Amran said he had coordinated with the Ministry of Trade regarding improvements to Minyakita’s governance. As a result, Minyakita will be fully managed by state-owned enterprises. “We coordinated with the Ministry of Trade earlier this morning, and it was stated that Minyakita will be 100 percent managed by BUMN,” he said.

He stressed that this policy was a directive from President Prabowo, delivered approximately two weeks prior. “That was the President’s directive, about two weeks ago if I’m not mistaken, directing that Minyakita be 100 percent managed by BUMN,” he asserted.

Amran noted that Minister of Trade Budi Santoso has also approved the plan. The government hopes that the distribution and supply of Minyakita can be better controlled in the future. “The Minister of Trade has agreed. God willing, it will be under control going forward. Because the problem with Minyakita, as we reported previously, was that only 35 percent was managed by BUMN and it was used for food aid,” he said.

He revealed that the use of Minyakita in food aid programmes was one of the factors causing the product’s scarcity in the market. Consequently, the government has halted that distribution scheme. “Previously, regular oil (other brands) should have been used, not Minyakita. We have stopped that. That was one of the reasons Minyakita became scarce,” Amran said.

As a replacement, the government has asked Perum Bulog to use commercial cooking oil brands for food aid programmes. “Now we are asking Bulog not to use Minyakita, but other brands of cooking oil,” he said.

Meanwhile, data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows that the price of Minyakita has begun to decline in recent months, although it remains above the Highest Retail Price (HET). BPS Head Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti stated that the price of Minyakita in traditional markets monitored by the Ministry of Trade is currently relatively stable at around Rp16,355 per litre. However, nationally, this price is still higher than the set HET of Rp15,700 per litre.

“But if we look at the price of Minyakita in traditional markets monitored by the Ministry of Trade, it has been successfully reduced from Rp17,000 per litre to Rp16,355 per litre, although this is still above the HET of Rp15,700 per litre,” she said.

According to data from the Ministry of Trade’s Market and Basic Needs Monitoring System (SP2KP), as of the second week of June 2026, the national average price of Minyakita was recorded at Rp16,355 per litre, a slight increase of about 0.4 percent compared to May 2026. Meanwhile, the average price for all types of cooking oil, including bulk, premium and Minyakita, reached Rp20,163 per litre nationally in the second week of June 2026, an increase of 0.81 percent from the previous month.

Amalia also noted that the Price Development Index (IPH) for cooking oil continues to rise in many regions. BPS data recorded an increase in the cooking oil IPH across 165 districts/cities, or about 45.83 percent of monitored areas. These figures indicate that while Minyakita prices are starting to decline, the overall challenge of stabilising cooking oil prices remains a task for the government. Therefore, the government hopes that the management of Minyakita by state-owned enterprises will strengthen distribution oversight and maintain more stable supplies in the market.