Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) commissioner Syarkawi Rauf said on Monday that 11 importers had allegedly conspired to retain imported garlic containers at Tanjung Perak Port in Surabaya, East Java, hoping to see the price skyrocket.“We’ve found a number of garlic containers with the permit documents not processed [by importers]. We suspect importers did this with a purpose, planning to release them to the market when the price climbs further,” he told reporters after a meeting about the issue with various stakeholders.
Indonesia, which imports a considerable portion of its garlic, saw the price of this key ingredient increase to Rp 60,000 (US$6.3) per kilogram last week due to a supply shortage. The dramatic price increase had caused concerns about further increases in the country’s inflation.
Amid the scarcity, the government detained 332 containers of imported garlic at the port as they were found without sufficient legal documents, such as import recommendations from the Agriculture Ministry and import permits from the Trade Ministry.
The containers form part of 160,000 tons of garlic import limit set by the Agriculture Ministry for the first half of this year.
The anti-trust body said it would launch its investigation into the alleged garlic cartel business practices on Friday by questioning suspected importers.
