Indonesia seeks up to 100,000 tonnes of US rice
Date: 05-Aug-02
Country: INDONESIA
Widjanarko Puspojo, head of state logistics agency Bulog, said a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the purchase was signed last week by Finance Minister Boediono and U.S. Ambassador Ralph Boyce.
The rice will be purchased under the PL-480 programme that allows developing countries to buy agricultural goods from the United States using long-term, low-interest loans, Puspojo said.
"The total assistance will worth around $20 million for the purchasing of 90,000 to 100,000 tonnes of rice. The deliveries will be in November-December 2002, but if it's not finished by December the deliveries will be resumed in 2003," he told reporters.
The rice will priced at $170-$180 a tonne CIF Indonesia, he said.
Puspojo said the PL-480 programme has a 35-year payment period plus a five-year grace period.
"The MOU is a follow up from talks by President Megawati (Sukarnoputri) with U.S. officials during her last year's visit to the U.S. She was concerned about our rice stocks. The rice will be used to add our national stocks," Puspojo said.
Indonesia last used the programme to buy rice at the height of the financial crisis in 1998.
Bulog earlier this year warned it might have trouble meeting its local purchase target of 2.2 million tonnes for 2002 because of flooding in Java's rice growing areas and an expected return of the drought-induced El Nino weather phenomenon.
It said it might have to import 1.6 million tonnes of rice this year, from an earlier target of 1.1 million tonnes, to meet the shortfall.
Bulog said last week it had signed an MOU to buy another 300,000 tonnes of 15 percent broken rice from Thailand. It bought 200,000 tonnes of Thai rice in June in exchange for Indonesian train wagons, an airplane and ammonia.
The agency also signed a deal late last year for 500,000 tonnes from Vietnam and said in June it was in talks last month to buy 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes of 15 percent Chinese rice to meet a shortfall in local procurement.
