Jakarta –
Indonesia plans to establish its own reference price for oil palm raw (crude palm oil/CPO). Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan alias Zulhas ordered the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Body (Bappebti) to immediately establish the oil palm exchange.
Zulhas explained that the plan was pushed because Indonesia is the largest producer of CPO in the world. However, the domestic palm oil industry instead refers to prices from Malaysia.
“Several times in the cabinet meeting it was alluded to when we joined Malaysia, which has our oil palm but we joined Malaysia, who is bad, CoFTRA. Has CoFTRA but why does it follow Malaysia,” Zulhas said in his remarks at the opening of the CoFTRA Work Meeting, at the Ministry of Trade, Jakarta Center, Thursday (19/1/2023).
Zulhas targets his own reference price for CPO to be formed in June 2023. That way Indonesia can also set a reference price for world CPO as well.
“With all the authority we have, rubber, CPO, coffee can already be with us. So if it’s possible in June, it can already be displayed on the screen that we have a benchmark price. If earlier that morning on the radio there was world coffee prices, prices world pepper,” he said.
On the same occasion, Acting Head of CoFTRA, Didid Noordiatmoko, revealed why so far Indonesia has not established its own reference price for CPO and other commodities.
According to him, one of the obstacles is the unreliable data on commodity transactions in Indonesia. As a result, the process of setting commodity reference prices cannot be realized.
“Commodity transaction data in Indonesia is currently unreliable,” Didid said.
Even so, Didid targets that the establishment of its own reference prices for CPO, coffee, and rubber can be formed this year. This is the mandate of Law Number 32 concerning Commodity Futures Trading which was issued in 1997.
For information, Indonesia is an oil producer palm the world’s largest has no reference price of its own. So far, world palm oil industry players, including Indonesia, have referred to the two main MDEX exchanges in Malaysia and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
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