President Joko Widodo said in a statement Thursday that he had made the decision “based on the current supply and price of cooking oil” and taking into account the 17 million workers who work in Indonesia’s palm oil industry.
Prices fell 1% on Thursday after Widodo’s announcement, according to the Malaysian stock exchange.
Higher prices have put pressure on global consumers at the worst possible time. Palm oil is an important ingredient in food and cosmetics. WWF estimates it is used in nearly 50% of all packaged products in supermarkets.
Ukraine is not only a major wheat producer, but also one of the world’s largest exporters of sunflower oil – a widely used alternative to palm oil – but the invasion of Russia has disrupted production, according to consultancy LMC International.
Droughts in South America and Canada have also limited supplies of soybean oil and canola oil, respectively.
World food prices rose to all-time highs in March, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said last month. According to the report, “the war in the Black Sea region spread shocks through the staple grain and vegetable oil markets.”
The FAO food price index, which measures the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, was 33.6% higher than in March 2021.
Prices fell slightly in April, but the risk of a global food crisis has not disappeared. David Beasley, head of the World Food Program, said on Wednesday that not opening Ukraine’s closed ports to get the grains out would put millions of people on the brink of starvation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that the war in Ukraine, on top of all other global crises, “threatens tens of millions of people with food insecurity, malnutrition, mass hunger and famine.”
† Angela Dewan, Michelle Toh and Sharon Braithwaite contributed coverage.
#glimmer #hope #food #prices #Indonesia #lifts #palm #oil #export #ban
Comments
Post a Comment