"The beef import mechanism will be regulated by the agriculture minister."
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Chief Economic minister Hatta Rajasa has said that the government will speed up beef supply to stabilize prices which have been increasing of late.

"We will soon stabilize prices by speeding up beef supply," Hatta Rajasa told a press conference at his office here on Monday.

The chief economic minister said the government through the trade ministry officials would visit slaughter houses to check live cattle and frozen beef supply.

Guaranteed availability of supply would help drive down prices, he said.

"There are 400 abattoirs. We can also see the volume of supply and demand through an online system. Supply to Jakarta and West Java would be accelerated. The supply would be in the form of frozen beef and live cattle," the minister said.

Besides, the importation of beef would be decided through an auction and transparent mechanism which was open to credible but registered importers at the trade ministry.

"The beef import mechanism will be regulated by the agriculture minister," the minister said.

He said that the ministry of agriculture would cooperate with state-owned railway company PT Kereta Api and state-owned shipping firm PT Pelayaran Nusantara Indonesia (Pelni) for the transportation of the cattle to Jakarta.

"The agriculture ministry will accelerate the beef supply from the Indonesian eastern region with a special ship and train. Next April, train can transport frozen meat and live cattle from Surabaya (East Java) to Jakarta," he said.

He said that Pelni had prepared ships to transport cows from East and West Nusa Tenggara provinces.

The Indonesian Farmers Association (HKTI) recently urged the government to stabilize the soaring beef price soon without importing the commodity.

"The soaring beef price which reaches Rp90 thousand a kg apparently results from a shortage of beef supplies in the market. But this does not mean that the government must import beef and leave beef trade to the market mechanism to deal with the shortage of beef supplies," HKTI Secretary General Fadli Zon said on Friday (Feb.8).

Actually, high beef price benefited cattle raisers but if the price skyrocketed it would cause a problem to customers, he said.

"The beef price which reaches Rp90 thousand a kg is the highest compared to those of other countries which range between Rp50 thousand and Rp60 thousand a kg," he said.

However, cattle raisers could not always benefit from the high beef price, he said.

"Ideally, the high beef price should serve as incentives for cattle raisers. But the high beef price has an impact on the prices of other commodities. Therefore, the higher the beef price, the more miserable the life of the people," he said.

He realized that there had been pressure on the government to raise the quota of beef imports.

But he likewise stressed that the beef imports would not resolve the problem.

He said the country`s free trade policies had made the government lazy to create self-reliance in beef production.

The government`s target of self-reliance in beef production by 2014 would be a mere dream if the country kept relying on imported beef, he pointed out.

The key to solving the problem was improving the mechanism of beef distribution and speeding up the attainment of self-reliance in beef production, he said.
(Uu.A014/O001)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2013