RI, Thailand postpone talks on rice swap
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Talks between Indonesia and Thailand over a planned US$40 million barter deal have been delayed due to disagreement over the items to be swapped, according to the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).
Indonesia offered aircraft, train cars and fertilizer in exchange for Thai rice, but Bulog's chairman Widjanarko Puspoyo said Thailand had turned down the offer.
He did not specify how long the talks would be delayed, but he said Indonesia was ready to return to the negotiating table if Thailand was willing to accept the items offered by Indonesia.
"We will continue the talks only if Thailand agrees to take the aircraft, train cars and fertilizer (from us). If they don't take them all, we will postpone the countertrade talks," Widjanarko was quoted by Antara as saying following a ceremony to install several top officials in the agency.
According to Widjanarko, the decision to delay the deal had been made by Minister of Industry and Trade Rini M. Soewandi during a coordinating meeting of economic ministers on Wednesday.
Rini had earlier signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with her counterpart in Thailand to develop countertrade agreements between the two countries.
Under the deal, Indonesia would import 200,000 tons of rice from Thailand in exchange for one CN-235 aircraft, 122 train car units, and shipments of ammonia, a chemical substance used in the production of fertilizer.
On Tuesday, a senior official of the ministry said the first shipment of Thai rice was expected to arrive in July, but some analysts doubted that the deal would materialize, claiming that Indonesia was offering unmarketable products.
A source at the ministry said Thailand was not interested in the aircraft and train cars offered by Indonesia and would rather receive only fertilizer in exchange for the rice.
The CN-235 aircraft would be manufactured by state-owned aircraft maker PT Dirgantara Nusantara, which was formerly known as PT Industri Pesawat Terbang Nasional, while the train cars would be produced by state-owned railroad engineering firm PT INKA.
Meanwhile, Bulog's spokesman Suhardo said that should the Thailand-Indonesia barter talks fall through, the agency might seek out rice in other countries to meet its rice import target of one million tons this year.
"We may explore other markets like China and Cambodia if the countertrade talks with Thailand fall through," Suhardo told The Jakarta Post.
Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, shipped some 500,000 tons of rice to Indonesia in 2001 through private firms.
As of this month, Bulog has bought 1.05 million tons of rice out of the 2.2 million tons it expects to buy on the domestic market this year. It has also imported some 300,000 million tons of rice.
The agency earlier signed a one-year deal to import 500,000 tons of rice from the government-run Vietnam Southern Food Corp.
As of March, total imports from Vietnam amounted to 300,000 tons, while the remaining rice under the deal would be brought in based upon domestic requirements, Suhardo said.