European traders reported on Monday that Indonesia’s state procurement agency, Bulog, had issued an international tender to buy about 320,000 tonnes of rice.
The deadline for submitting bids is July 31. Traders said Bulog is expected to begin price negotiations that could last for several days.
The head of the National Food Agency said Indonesia may import up to 4.3 million tonnes of rice if the harvest is not sufficient.
Indonesia plans to import an additional 3.6 million tonnes of rice this year.
Statistics Indonesia forecasts rice production from January to August to be 9.52 percent lower than in 2023. Prices of domestic rice, the staple food for Indonesia’s 270 million people, were about 12 percent higher in June from a year earlier as bad weather slashed the harvest.
Brogue wants white rice, milled within six months from the 2024 harvest and with 5% coarse grain size, traders said.
The rice will be imported from Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar and is expected to arrive in Indonesia between August and September 2024.
The tender comes after Indonesia made a series of large purchases overseas in the first half of the year to boost rice imports and stabilize prices following a poor domestic harvest.
On May 22, the company reported that it had purchased about 210,000 tonnes of rice in the last international tender. Most of the rice it bought was from Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. (Reporting and editing by Christopher Cushing and Michael Hogan)
