Sjarifudin hails plan to scrap Bulog monopoly
Sjarifudin hails plan to scrap Bulog monopoly
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah
said yesterday he fully supported the government's plan to scrap
the National Logistics Agency's (Bulog) trading monopoly in
several food commodities.
He said the deregulation plan would give more benefits to
farmers and force commodity producers to enhance competitiveness
in a free market.
"I have repeatedly asserted that the more developed our
economy is, the more stable prices will be. Therefore, the plan
to reduce Bulog's (monopolistic) functions indicates that our
economy has reached a more developed stage," Sjarifudin said
after presenting dedication and development awards to 52
businesspeople and officials at his ministry.
Coordinating Minister for Economy and Finance Saleh Afiff said
last week the government was preparing measures to abolish
Bulog's trading monopoly in food commodities including wheat,
soybeans, garlic, onions and sugar, but not rice.
Afiff said the plan was facing strong objections from several
ministers.
Sjarifudin said he fully backed the deregulation plan, citing
Bulog's monopoly in sugar and cooking oil trade as among top
priority to be abolished.
He said the abolishment of Bulog's monopoly over the
importation of refined sugar would create a free market in the
country which would subsequently force sugar producers to work
more efficiently.
"The country's sugar producers need to be exposed to import
competition to force them to work more efficiently," he said.
Cooking oil
Sjarifudin said he had issued an order to state-owned
plantations to stop supplying Bulog with crude palm oil (CPO)
starting this month.
Bulog receives 20,000 tons of CPO monthly from state
plantation companies which the agency refines into cooking oil at
private mills. The cooking oil is used to stabilize market
prices.
Sjarifudin said he had ordered PT Perkebunan Nusantara IV and
PT Agrintara to supply Bulog with cooking oil equivalent to
20,000 tons of CPO monthly, starting this month, for its market
operations.
PT Perkebunan Nusantara IV -- the country's single largest CPO
producer -- has a CPO refining plant in Belawan, North Sumatra.
PT Agrintara, which is owned jointly by all state plantation
companies, operates a palm oil refining, fractionation and
oleochemical plant in Batam with a daily capacity of 1,000 CPO.
"We think it is more effective to supply Bulog with cooking
oil instead of CPO which has yet to be refined at private mills,"
Sjarifudin said.
Agrintara's current production is adequate to stabilize the
price of cooking oil in the country.
Agricultural analysts said yesterday Sjarifudin's move would
make Bulog's business partners, which for years had enjoyed the
monopoly of processing Bulog's CPO, lose another business
opportunity. (jsk)