Jakarta, Nov 30 (Antara) - Public spending on basic commodities usually increases during Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations, resulting in increase in prices of essential goods and decline in stocks.
In the run-up to the year-end festivities, the government will prioritize 13 provinces in its efforts to maintain price and stock stability of basic commodities. In these provinces, there will be an increase in trade activities during Christmas 2017 and 2018 New Year celebrations.
According to the Special Economic Crime Director of the National Police's (Polri's) Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim), Brig. Gen. Agung Setya, the 13 provinces include Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Papua, West Papua, Maluku, North Maluku, North Sulawesi, and North Sumatra.
The Bareskrim has organized a coordination meeting with a number of ministries and state institutions to discuss the framework of maintaining the price and stability of stocks of basic commodities ahead of the year-end celebrations.
The ministries and state institutions include the Agriculture Ministry, the Trade Ministry, the State Logistics Board (Bulog), the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU), the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (POM), and the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS).
Bareskrim Chief Com. Gen. Ari Dono Sukamto remarked in a coordination meeting that Polri's food task forces are now monitoring and supervising the increase in prices at the consumer level. Based on the monitoring of the police food task forces, the prices and stocks of basic foods are now stable.
Yet, the government should continue to anticipate an increase in price in the face of Christmas and year-end festivities, as in the previous years.
"We want the prices and stocks of basic necessities to remain stable during this year¿s Christmas and New Year celebrations, similar to the fasting month and its subsequent Eid al-Fitr festivities last June. We hope all stakeholders in food business would cooperate and take efforts to stabilize the price and stocks of essential goods," noted Sukamto.
The involvement of other stakeholders, in the efforts to maintain price and stock stability of basic foods, does not imply that the government should no longer interfere in it.
The Trade Ministry continues to monitor and maintain the stability in price and supply of essential goods in the face of the year-end festivities. "The Trade Ministry cooperates with the regional governments and relevant agencies to assure that prices and stocks of basic goods would remain stable," Internal Trade Director General of the Ministry of Trade, Tjahya Widayanti, remarked in Ambon, Maluku, on Monday (Nov 27).
She added that the results of field inspection in the region, in Maluku for example, indicated that the prices of basic commodities remain stable and stocks would be adequate during the festivities.
"The government will continue to ascertain the stability in price and stock of essential commodities," she noted.
According to Widayanti, prices would not shoot up significantly as the public demand for essential goods would not take place simultaneously across the country, especially during Christmas. Demand for such commodities increase only in regions whose most of the population celebrate Christmas.
Yet, the government should continue to take three anticipatory steps to face the season. The steps include taking efforts to indentify the availability of stocks, monitoring the prices on the national scale, and increasing supervision of goods supplies.
These steps are important to prevent shortage of stocks, avoid distribution problems, and protect consumers from expired and smuggled goods, which are not safe for consumption. In this case, the central government will continue to coordinate with service offices in the trade sector to maintain price and stock stability.
The main point is that the government will continue to maintain price stability that it had attained so far. According to Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the government would do its best to maintain the public satisfaction level of price stability at 70 percent.
"Yes, the government will consistently maintain it. Talking about prices, the 70 percent satisfaction level of the public is just an example. This is because the government has already set the retail prices of rice and sugar. There are five food commodities whose retail prices have been fixed. They should not be sold at higher prices than the set ones," Kalla explained at his office on Tuesday (Nov 28).
The vice president made the statement in response to the results of a survey by Poltracking survey institution, which exposed the results of its survey on public satisfaction on prices on Sunday (Nov 26). The survey results indicated that the public satisfaction of the government of President Joko Widodo had reached 70 percent.
"If from the survey, there are nearly 70 percent of people who are happy with the government's policy, then there are only 30 percent who are not satisfied. It is certainly not possible to reach 100 percent satisfaction level," he revealed.
According to Kalla, the results of a survey of 70 percent of public satisfaction indicates that the government is quite successful in providing welfare to the community, especially in the economic sector, and the government will do its best to maintain stability.***3** (A014/INE) EDITED BY INE |
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