Rice imports see 10-fold increase

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's rice imports have increased almost 10-fold in the last five years, soaring from US$53 million in 1991 to $514 million in 1995, an official says.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade's Director General of International Trade Anang Fuad Rivai said last week that the value of rice imports during that period grew at an average of 56 percent a year, while volume increased by 60.8 percent a year.

"The higher increase in import volume compared to import value shows that the price of rice imported by Indonesia during that period had a tendency to decline," Anang said during a hearing with members of the House of Representatives' Budgetary Commission.

Last year, however, the import value increased sharply -- by 227 percent -- indicating that Indonesia imported extremely large amounts of rice, Anang said.

He did not mention the volume of rice imported, but earlier reports said imports increased from 2.4 million tons in 1994 to 2.9 million tons in 1995.

Anang said Indonesia's imports of dairy products over the past five years doubled from $63 million in 1991 to $143 million in 1995, with import value growing by an average of 18 percent and volume increasing by 9.3 percent a year.

Imports of foodstuffs during that period -- both semi- processed and prepared foodstuff -- doubled from $934.7 million to $2.04 billion. Imports went up by an average of 13.3 percent a year, while the value increased by 20.2 percent.

Imports of drinks during that period tripled from $6.7 million to $21.8 million. Most of the imports were made up of alcoholic beverages and mineral water.

Imports of fruits during 1991-1995 increased six-fold, from $15.7 million to $89.8 million, growing at an average of 50.8 percent a year. Most of the imports consisted of fresh fruits such as apples, pears, grapes and mandarins.

Imports of household equipment during that period, however, showed an increase of only 12.2 percent in value, from $306.6 million to $540.2 million. (pwn)