VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Panjaitan explained that the government's policy to eliminate the export levy of crude palm oil (CPO) is carried out to ease the burden on the community due to the decline in the world’s CPO prices. This was conveyed after meeting President Joko Widodo on Monday afternoon at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. According to Luhut, the government's move to remove CPO export levies is temporarily carried out by monitoring the movement of the world palm oil prices. Meanwhile, according to him, the government has managed to collect CPO export levies of up to 30 trillion rupiah. The amount, according to him, will be used to improve the welfare of oil palm farmers as long as the export levies are eliminated.

"Yes, the palm oil prices continuously decrease, the government, the president in this case, see, we decrease it for the next 6 months, if I am not mistaken. Yes we see it first, right now the oil palm is to the small people, the president only looks at the small people, then we will see again the response from the market. We have more than Rp 30 trillion in funds there, the president also requested whether it could be used to help the small farmers," said Luhut.

Previously, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution announced the decision to determine the export levy of crude palm oil (CPO) from US $ 50 per ton to zero US dollars per ton. This policy was taken in view of the adverse effects faced by the domestic CPO industry which had declined. The price of palm oil is currently dropping sharply from 530 dollars per ton last week to 420 US dollars per ton. This effort according to Luhut is intended to maintain economic stability within the country amid global economic instability. (VOI/Ndy/AHM)