Taiwan agrees to resume rice aid to Indonesia
Taiwan agrees to resume rice aid to Indonesia
By Sylvia Gratia M. Nirang
TAIPEI (JP): Taiwan will deliver promised rice aid to Indonesia after a delay of almost one year, according to the chairman of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), Rahardi Ramelan.
Rahardi, who is in Taipei to lead an Indonesian trade and investment mission, said here on Saturday that Taiwan would provide cash instead of rice as earlier pledged.
"Taiwan will provide Indonesia with cheap loans to procure 200,000 tons of rice pledged by Taiwan last year," Rahardi, who is also the minister of industry and trade, said.
He said the rice aid would help Indonesia feed its population of some 202 million.
"Even though we could have a better harvest this year, we will still need at least two million tons of aid to meet domestic demand," he said after meeting with Taiwanese officials.
Rahardi said Taiwan pledged in August last year to provide Indonesia with 200,000 tons of rice to help Indonesia cope with its worst ever economic crisis. But the rice aid was delayed after the United States criticized the aid program.
The U.S. government said the sale of cheap rice to Indonesia would disrupt rice prices on the international market.
However, several newspapers speculated that Taiwan halted the aid to protest the Indonesian government's discrimination against Indonesians of Chinese origin.
Rahardi denied this speculation, saying the delay was due to pressure from the United States.
Rahardi said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and China would also provide loans to help Indonesia finance its rice imports.
"With this aid we may not need commercial procurements from the international market this year," he said.
Indonesia is predicted to harvest 49.2 million tons of unhusked rice this year, an increase of some 6 percent from the 46.44 million tons in 1998.
The unhusked rice can be milled into 31 million tons of milled rice. The country's rice consumption is predicted to reach 33 million tons of rice this year.
The country is expected to import at least two million tons of rice this year to meet domestic demand.
Meanwhile, Bulog Director of Foreign Procurement M. Ismeth said the agency would sell its stocks of wheat flour, soybeans and sugar in June.
Ismeth said Bulog currently had around 500,000 tons of wheat flour and 200,000 tons of sugar and soybeans each.
"The stocks will be released into the market gradually so they will not disrupt domestic prices," he said.
Bulog lost its sugar, soybean and wheat flour monopolies in September last year under an agreement the government reached with the International Monetary Fund, with the latter agreeing to organize a bailout package for Indonesia.
Following the removal of the monopoly, the government liberalized the trade and importation of the three commodities.
Bulog is now responsible only for the importation and distribution of rice.