June 4, 2026 | 01:29 pm
Stock of MinyaKita products sold at a store in Jatinegara Market, Jakarta, May 6, 2026. Tempo/Ilham Balindra
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Trade Minister Budi Santoso announced that the government will officially raise the maximum retail price (HET) of Minyakita in less than a month. Budi explained that the adjustment to the subsidized cooking oil’s HET was decided after carefully evaluating fluctuating raw material costs and rising production expenses."We have agreed to raise the maximum retail price for Minyakita," Budi said at the Ministry of Trade office on Thursday, June 4, 2026. He noted that the exact price hike will be finalized once crude palm oil (CPO) prices show signs of stabilizing.Budi points out that the government cannot immediately pin down the exact figure for the price adjustment due to the fluctuation of CPO prices. Recently, the price of CPO hovered around Rp15,445 per kilogram, only to plunge to roughly Rp14,000 per kilogram yesterday.Detailing the impact of these market fluctuations, Budi stated that actual production costs have exceeded current retail prices. He recalled that when Minyakita’s price was pegged at Rp15,700 per liter back in 2024, CPO was trading at just around Rp12,400 per kilogram. Today, however, the cost of raw CPO has virtually caught up with what consumers pay for the finished product. "This means there is a loss, so we are calculating the economic price," he explained.Minyakita was introduced as an affordable cooking oil program by the Ministry of Trade in the second half of 2022. At the time, the brand served as a solution to curb skyrocketing cooking oil prices during a severe domestic supply crisis.When the program first launched, the Trade Minister at the time, Zulkifli Hasan, set Minyakita's maximum retail price at a modest Rp14,000 per liter.Minyakita operates under a framework requiring CPO producers and exporters to supply a portion of their yield to the local market through the Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) scheme. The trade policies governing Minyakita and the cooking oil DMO have already undergone two major revisions, spanning from the Jokowi administration to the current Prabowo government.Read: Indonesia's Palm Oil Firms Await New Export Regulation DetailsClick here to get the latest news updates from Tempo on Google News
