Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government, through the Ministry of Trade, will soon issue a decree to regulate rice exports.
"I am preparing a rice export regulation and hope it can be issued within the next few days," Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said after a coordinative meeting on economic affairs here on Friday.
The minister said the decree would ban export of rice conducted by any party other than the National Logistics Agency (Bulog).
"It is only Bulog that will be authorized to carry out rice exports but before it does so it should first get the green light from the government through the Food Stability Team," she said.
The minister said Bulog could carry out rice exports only if there was a surplus in rice production. "So, there will be no export if there is no rice surplus," she added.
The government is planning to export rice as this year the country is expected to experience a rice production surplus of over 1.30 million tons.
Director General for Food Crops Sutarto Alimuso said recently production in 2008 was estimated to reach 58.26 million tons of dry unhusked rice or equivalent to about 33 million tons of rice.
If the population was 227.78 million with a per capita rice consumption of 139.15 kg, the national need for rice was about 31.68 million tons, he said.
So this year there would be a rice surplus of about 1.30 million tons, excluding year-end left-over stocks in the warehouses of Bulog and rice stored by the people, the director general said.
At present, March and April, Indonesia is in a rice harvest season. "Indonesia`s dry unhusked rice production this season is estimated at 19.3 million tons," Sutarto Alimuso said.
The 19.3 million tons will come from harvests on a total of 4.12 million hectares of paddies in West Java, Central Java, East Java, Banten, South Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, Lampung and South Sumatra provinces. (*)
"I am preparing a rice export regulation and hope it can be issued within the next few days," Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said after a coordinative meeting on economic affairs here on Friday.
The minister said the decree would ban export of rice conducted by any party other than the National Logistics Agency (Bulog).
"It is only Bulog that will be authorized to carry out rice exports but before it does so it should first get the green light from the government through the Food Stability Team," she said.
The minister said Bulog could carry out rice exports only if there was a surplus in rice production. "So, there will be no export if there is no rice surplus," she added.
The government is planning to export rice as this year the country is expected to experience a rice production surplus of over 1.30 million tons.
Director General for Food Crops Sutarto Alimuso said recently production in 2008 was estimated to reach 58.26 million tons of dry unhusked rice or equivalent to about 33 million tons of rice.
If the population was 227.78 million with a per capita rice consumption of 139.15 kg, the national need for rice was about 31.68 million tons, he said.
So this year there would be a rice surplus of about 1.30 million tons, excluding year-end left-over stocks in the warehouses of Bulog and rice stored by the people, the director general said.
At present, March and April, Indonesia is in a rice harvest season. "Indonesia`s dry unhusked rice production this season is estimated at 19.3 million tons," Sutarto Alimuso said.
The 19.3 million tons will come from harvests on a total of 4.12 million hectares of paddies in West Java, Central Java, East Java, Banten, South Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, Lampung and South Sumatra provinces. (*)
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