Jokowi had paid special attention to promote stability of food prices ranging from meat, chicken, sugar, and others.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has ordered the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) to keep an eye on the competition in the food commodity business in order to promote commodity price stability.

"The president wants to obtain information related to various commodities in Indonesia, and one among them is food commodities," Commission Chairman Syarkawi Rauf stated at the Presidential Palace Complex here on Thursday.

He noted that Jokowi had paid special attention to promote stability of food prices ranging from meat, chicken, sugar, and others.

"We assured the president that we will continue to focus on the handling of the cases related to alleged cartels in food commodities," Syarkawi remarked.

He remarked that the Commission in the last two years had been dealing with many alleged cartel cases. One of the cases that got a lot of attention was the cartel in food commodities.

The first case was the alleged cartel in beef trade. The Commission assumes that the price of beef, which reached up to Rp140 thousand to Rp150 thousand per kilogram recently, was due to the presence of cartels. "We told the president that the Commission will continue to monitor and supervise the meat business," he asserted.

The second case is related to chicken and poultry. According to him, Jokowi paid attention to those commodities as well.

"We will focus on it. We will collaborate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Trade. This is a solution to overcome the current problems in our poultry business, whose prices are low at the farmers' level but higher at the market level," he stated.

He called for an increased coordination with ministries as a recommendation to the government for the eradication of cartel practices.

"We at the Commission will closely work together with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Trade to monitor it, and we will create rules that correspond to healthy competition," he reiterated.

He revealed that one solution to save small and independent poultry farmers was to build partnerships between large poultry companies and the smaller ones.

"By partnering, they can survive together but not with exploitative partnerships," Syarkawi remarked.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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