Erratic policies exacerbate uncertainty in palm oil industry: Jakarta Post contributor

Transporting freshly harvested palm fruits at a palm oil plantation in South Sumatra, Indonesia. - Reuters

JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network): The recent pronouncement by the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan that all palm oil companies in the country are to be audited confirms assumptions that the government has no complete database on the upstream and downstream palm oil industry.

The move came on the back of a series of marketing-intervention measures between January and this month to stabilise the retail price of cooking oil after the prices of palm oil skyrocketed due to the massive disruption in the global supply of edible oils, a combined result of poor harvests and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.