Jokowi: Govt Doesn’t Stay Silent on Palm Oil Price

PRESIDENT Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said the government doesn’t stay silent on current slump in palm oil and rubber price. The government continues to lobby international communities, including the European Union (EU), to open their market for Indonesian palm oil. The EU policy to undermine palm oil has contributed to palm oil price decrease. In that case, for the last four years the government has sent delegation to lobby the EU and other countries to open their market for Indonesian palm oil. “Anyway, this is a matter of business, a matter of products selling. They (the EU) must also sell their sunflower oil and at the same time we sell palm oil to them. That’s why palm oil was undermined in the EU,” The President said in Palembang, South Sumatera, Sunday (25/11/2018). Jokowi said, the government has also lobbied China to open the market for palm oil products. At the beginning of this year, Jokowi met the premier of China and ask him to increase palm oil import from Indonesia. This diplomacy finally succeeded and China agreed to import 500 thousand tons more palm oil. “I got the point, I demanded China to buy our palm oil to absorb our production and help the price to increase. China agreed to import 500 thousand tons more, it is huge enough,” Jokowi said. Nevertheless, the addition import volume is yet to influence the market. It is not easy to lift the price since it has something to do with international trade. For that reason, the government has implemented expanded B20 mandatory program since 1 September 2018, to absorb CPO surplus. Jokowi said it will take at least one year for the expanded B20 mandatory program to take into effect. The program is expected to lift the price. The President has also reminded that Indonesian oil palm plantation is the largest in the world. The plantation stretch across 13 million hectares producing a total of 42 million tons per year. “You can imagine, 42 million ton is huge number. If all the production is loaded into trucks, it will need 10 million trucks. We are now competing with Malaysia, Thailand but we are the largest,” The President said. *** (Source: Cabinet Secretariat of RI)