"Supply is expected to increase in April. We hope it would offset the inflation rate. The meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency (BMKG) said March rainfall will be small so that we hope it would not disturb food supply," the deputy minister sJakarta (ANTARA News) - Deputy Minister of Finance Bayu Krisnamurthi expressed hope that food supply would increase in the harvest season next April so that the high inflation of late would be cut down.
"Supply is expected to increase in April. We hope it would offset the inflation rate. The meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency (BMKG) said March rainfall will be small so that we hope it would not disturb food supply," the deputy minister said here on Monday.
He said that inflation in February reached 0.75 percent. It was caused by the increase in the prices of horticultural products as a result of bad weather conditions disturbing production process.
Bayu said that food commodities underwent higher inflation compared with other commodities.
The food commodities included red union with an inflation of 0.07 percent, red chili (0.04 percent), cayenne pepper (0.03 percent), egg (0.02 percent), beef (0.01 percent) and fresh fish (0.01percent)
He said that inflation in the food sector should be given serious attention because it had serious impact on the poor because they spent about 60 to 70 percent of their income for food.
Inflation rate in February 2013 was recorded at 0.75 percent, the highest level of February inflation in the last 10 years, said the head of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) Suryamin here Friday.
"This inflation is quite high, the highest one recorded in the month of February in the last ten years," he said in a press conference.
Suryamin said that the high February inflation was among others caused by the government`s policy restricting the importation of horticultural commodities.
This triggered price hikes while domestic demand and supply was still in the process of adjustment.
Suryamin expected that the government would anticipate the rise of other commodity prices as the inflation rate at the beginning of this year has already been high.
"Hopefully, the inflation would not be too high in the future and would not put pressures on prices," he said.
The February inflation was also affected by general inflation at 0.75 percent, core inflation 0.30 percent, government-regulated prices 0.72 and volatile prices 2.23 percent.
"The government regulated electricity tariff price hike imposed at the beginning of the year also affected the inflation," he added.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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