"As of Friday (March 1), the government will give discount for beef distribution from production centers to all areas in Indonesia," Minister of Agriculture Suswono said here on Monday.
He explained the ministry will cooperate with state-owned railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia, state-owned shipping company PT Pelni and state-owned airline company PT Merpati Nusantara in implementing the new policy.
The policy is expected to reduce beef price to enable local beef to compete with imported one in the market. According to the minister, the price of local beef is more expensive than that of the imported one due to extra distribution cost.
Earlier, the Indonesian Farmers Association (HKTI) called on the government to stabilize the soaring beef price soon without importing the commodity.
"The soaring beef price which reaches Rp90.000 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.
Actually, high beef price benefited cattle raisers but if the price skyrocketed it would cause a problem to customers, 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 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.
(A051/S012)
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
