State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Erick Thohir said the market operations carried out by SOEs attempted to maintain the affordability of prices of nine basic commodities in Indonesia.

“We will continue to push for market operations to stabilize the prices of staple foods. We want to avoid price increases of these nine basic commodities. I just received data showing that the world food prices have increased by 14 percent. That is the highest ever recorded in history. This means that we must jointly intervene and overcome this matter,” he said in a statement received here Sunday.

He added that the SOEs would aggressively conduct the market operations in various regions as a form of mitigation against the risk of deteriorating prices of basic necessities.

The minister emphasized that  conducting the market operations was a form of SOEs’ quick response to maintain price stability.

Thohir stated earlier that SOEs were ready to become standby buyers (off-takers) of staple foods in order to anticipate 2023’s potential crisis. However, the condition must be addressed with clear assignment from the government to the SOEs.

He remarked that this assignment is necessary to bring transparency for the SOEs leaders in implementing the task to avoid alleged violations to them.

He later explained that the role of SOEs in food security is part of anticipatory measures to reduce food prices. The high potential for future inflation can be caused by two points, namely the high price of fuel oil and soaring food prices.

In addition, global supply chain conditions are also expected to continue to get disrupted.

Based on that, one of the keys to survive is the country’s ability to maintain the condition of the national food supply chain. For this reason, the SOEs are ready to participate in maintaining the national food security, he added.

Source: Antara News