Indonesian Gas Price: Decreasing is Also a Dillemma

Today is 1 day before the D-Day….hey, what are we talkin’ about?

I’s about a signal of gas price cut by the government, Vice President Jusuf Kalla gave the signal about that. He stated that at 15^th of January the gas price would be cut down again.

At the end of 2008, Indonesia has made some policy to cut the gas price, from Rp 6,000 at May, reduced to Rp 5,500 at 1^st of December, then about two weeks later, the government cut down the price again to Rp 5,000.

People would be glad with the reduction, but when there is a glad, there is a sad, who are the unhappy ones? They are gas station owners. They think it’s all too sudden, since they still have the old stock and they should follow the government policy to sell with lower price. Some of them even had lost about ten millions rupiahs because of the reduction.

Since the government gave signal to cut the gas price again, many people expect that there will be another reduction come in this year. Gas station doubt whether to buy another stocks or wait for the price to cut. It would lead into a scarcity of gas and that’s not good for the economics. maybe we will not find it in Jakarta, but how about other cities?

It would be a good report for SBY-JK government, because they have cut gas price, a long time no hear news in Indonesia. Since they should compete again in PEMILU (National Election) in 2009, it would be a strong bargaining power, and it seems they want to cut as low as they can before this governmental period is over.

I think the government should make a good plan or announcement before they tend to reduce the gas price.

–
Anton Hermansyah