July 31, 2012

Indonesia's soy importers form cartel to manipulate prices

Soy industry people and politicians allege that Indonesian government officials helped few importers form cartels to manipulate prices as the prices of soy reached new high in Indonesia.

Bambang Soesatyo, member of the House of Representatives (DPR), on Sunday (July 29), "There are indications that government officials abused their authority to give these importers a monopoly."

The Golkar Party politician further said that the government should have anticipated the shortage and could have acted accordingly.

"Government was powerless to act accordingly because of the alleged collusion between the importers and the officials," he added.

Earlier last week, the chairman of the Indonesian Tempeh and Tofu Cooperative (Kopti), Suyanto had raised concerns about the cartel formation saying, "There are four big companies and they set the price."

In order to ease soy price the government announced cut in the import duty for the commodity from 5% to zero.