Jakarta – A total of 260,000 tons of imported rice part of 500,000 tons the government is importing will arrive in Indonesia through three seaports in Java, namely Jakarta's Tanjung Priok (40,000 tons), Semarang's Tanjung Emas (60,000 tons) and Surabaya's Tanjung Perak (180,000 tons), a trade official said. "The largest portion of the imported rice will be unloaded at Tanjung Perak port because it has the largest warehouses from where the rice will be distributed to the country's eastern regions," Director General for External Trade Diah Maulida said here on Monday.
According to the trade minister's decree issued on Feb. 14, the planned rice imports of 500,000 tons will enter the country through 15 seaports. Some 6,000 tons of the total will enter through Lhok Seumawe of Aceh, 24,000 tons through Belawan of Medan, 12,000 tons through Taluk Bayur of Padang, 22,000 tons through Dumai of Riau, 36,000 tons through Panjang of Lampung, 24,000 tons through Ujungpandang, 42,000 tons through Pare-Pare, 6,000 tons through Celukan Bawang of Bali, 12,000 tons through Mataram of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), 30,000 tons through Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) and 6,000 tons through Jayapura, Papua.
The government is in the middle of importing 500,000 tons of rice with options to import even more to replenish national stocks which continue to decline due to market operations and distribution of subsidized rice for the poor.
After chairing a limited meeting on national food resilience last week, Vice President Yusuf Kalla announced the government's plan to import one million tons of rice, which consisted of two main phases.
According to the vice president, the import of 500,000 tons of rice for the first phase is being carried out and is expect to be completed soon, while the import of the other 500,000 tons for the second phase still constitutes an option.
Kalla said the optional import would be carried out if the rice market operations launched since December last year failed to lower the soaring prices of rice to about Rp4, 300 per kg.
Bulog chief Widjanarko Puspoyo said last week the national rice stocks currently stand at 700,000 tons compared to 1 million tons previously.
Rice is the main staple in Indonesia, which has a population of more than 230 million. *ant