29/5/07 (The Jakarta Post)  - JAKARTA: The government, in cooperation with cooking oil producers, has stepped up market operations to press down cooking oil prices to a range of 6,500-Rp 6,800 per kilogram in Jakarta and its surrounding towns amid the steady hike in the prices of crude palm oil.

Over the past three days, PT Mikie Oleo Nabati Industri supplied 6,000 metric tons of cooking oil to retailers and consumers in several markets in Jakarta and Bekasi at a fixed price of Rp 6,000 per kg, far lower than the prevailing market price of over 9,000.

"Our market operations hopefully would be able to help push down cooking oil prices to an average Rp 6,500/kg," said Alfan Kaslim, the marketing manager of PT Mikie Oleo Nabati Industri.

Alfan said the cooking oil sold by PT Mikie Oleo in the market operations was processed from 8,000 tons of crude palm oil (CPO) from PT Musim Mas and PT Minamas.

The government has threatened to slap a punitively high export tax if cooking oil and crude palm oil producers did not cooperate in helping stabilize cooking oil prices on the domestic market by the end of this month at Rp 6,500-Rp 6,800/kg. -- JP