The National Food Agency (NFA), the Indonesian government is planning to acquire one million metric tonnes of rice from China in an effort to increase its stocks.
Indonesia import rice from China: With 270 million citizens, Southeast Asia’s most populous nation has tasked state food procurement agency Bulog with importing 2.3 million metric tonnes of rice this year to offset the effects of the El Nino weather pattern, which is typically associated with extreme weather events like wildfires and droughts and threatens harvests in important growing regions across Asia.
The NFA predicted that drought in some regions of the nation, made worse by the El Nino weather phenomena, might reduce rice production from 31.54 million tonnes last year by 5% to 7% this year.
“We’ve made importing a million metric tonnes of rice from China an option. The president has spoken about this with his colleagues during the ASEAN conference, according to the NFA’s Arief Prasetyo Adi, who spoke to Reuters.
Arief stated that Cambodia, which has promised to send 10,000 metric tonnes of rice, and Indonesia are in communication.
Indonesia imported 1.59 million metric tonnes of rice from abroad between January and August, up from 237,146 tonnes during the same time last year, according to the nation’s statistics office.
With 802,000 tonnes, Thailand accounted for more than half of the shipments, with 674,000 tonnes from Vietnam, 66,000 tonnes from India, and 45,000 tonnes from Pakistan following closely behind.
The price of rice increased at the quickest rate in over ten years.
The average price per kilogramme increased by as much as 16% from the same month a year earlier to 14,000 rupiah ($0.91), the highest level since at least March 2017, according to data from the central bank.
Prior to this, President Joko Widodo gave the assurance that the nation’s rice supply is enough despite rising prices.