President Jokowi Checks Food Prices at the Wonokromo Market

Thepresidentpost.id - President Joko Widodo visited Wonokromo Market, Surabaya City, East Java Province, on Saturday (18/02/2023), to check the prices of food ingredients such as rice, cooking oil and eggs. 

As for the price of rice, according to the President, the market price is quite good, with a price range of IDR 9,000 per kilogram.

“I want to check a very important item called rice. Has the operation from Bulog reached stalls, to markets, I have seen it and the price is good, earlier it was Rp. 44,000 for 5 kilograms (grams). That is, the price is under IDR 9,000. Earlier we saw that all the stalls are there and they are abundant here," said the President.

The President continued, at the end of February and early March a number of regions had already started the main harvest. With this harvest, the President hopes that rice stocks will become more abundant which will then affect the price of rice in the market.

"Maybe nationally in February it might be 1 million (hectares), maybe later in March it will be 1.9 (millions of hectares). Approximately that, so if the production is from farmers, from the harvest it means that the stock is abundant. If the supply is abundant, the demand remains constant, meaning that the price will automatically fall," he added.

Meanwhile, for the prices of other foodstuffs such as cooking oil, the President said that the stock of cooking oil at the Wonokromo Market is quite large at a price of IDR 14,000 per liter. Then for eggs and shallots, the President said that the prices of these two foodstuffs also fell, although not significantly.

The Head of State also hopes that the stability of food prices in the regions can be maintained, so that both regional and national inflation as a whole can be properly controlled.

"Don't let it be like rice, a month ago raised very high inflation throughout the country, not just in East Java. But now since five days ago because rice operations from Bulog have started to go down, even though not all areas," he continued.