Indonesia hikes fuel prices to rein in ballooning subsidies

Indonesia has raised subsidised fuel prices by about 30 percent today, top officials said, as the government moves to rein in ballooning subsidies despite a risk of mass protests.

The price of subsidised gasoline was raised to 10,000 rupiah a litre from 7,650 rupiah, while that of subsidised diesel rose to 6,800 rupiah a litre from 5,150 rupiah, energy minister Arifin Tasrif said.

"I actually wanted domestic fuel prices to remain affordable by providing subsidies, but the budget for subsidies has tripled and will continue to increase," President Joko Widodo told a news conference.

"Now the government has to make a decision in a difficult situation. This is the government's last option," Jokowi, as the president is known, said.

Southeast Asia's largest economy had already jacked up its 2022 energy subsidies to 502 trillion rupiah, three times the original budget, pushed by rising global prices of oil and a depreciating rupiah currency.

If prices were not raised, the budget would have ballooned further to 698 trillion rupiah, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said.

She estimated total energy subsidies would range between 591 trillion and 649 trillion rupiah for this year following the price hike, assuming the average crude price stays in a range of US$85 to US$100 a barrel for the remainder of 2022.

High energy subsidies had previously kept Indonesia's inflation low, allowing the central bank to delay raising interest rates until last month, well behind regional and global peers. The August inflation rate was 4.69 percent.

Hariyadi Sukamdani, head of business group Indonesian Employers Association, said overall price pressure from the fuel price hike would not be too much, expecting inflation to top six percent at the end of the year.

"If prices of goods are too expensive, people won't buy. We can't raise prices too much," he said.

Businesses are using non-subsidised fuels, but the price hike will affect logistics costs, Hariyadi said.

Still, accelerating inflation could put pressure on the central bank to tighten monetary policy more quickly. The bank holds a two-day policy meeting ending on Sept 22.

Politically sensitive

Fuel prices are a politically sensitive issue in Indonesia, and the changes will have major implications for households and small businesses, as subsidised fuel accounts for more than 80 percent of state-owned oil giant Pertamina's sales.

The last fuel price hike was in 2014, months after Jokowi took office, aiming to free up fiscal space. That sparked protests across the archipelago.

The opposition Labour Party has arranged a protest involving thousands of workers for Tuesday, chairperson Said Iqbal, who also heads a trade union, told Reuters, calling on parliament to pressure the government to cancel the price hike.

"This will hurt purchasing power," he said. "Wages have not increased for three years and inflation is bound to rise sharply."

Small protests against any price hike, mostly led by students, had erupted in the past few days in several cities.

The government has allocated an additional total of 24.17 trillion rupiah for cash handouts to help the poor cope with the policy's impact, Jokowi said.

After the price hike announcement, Pertamina said it was committed to ensuring adequate fuel supplies nationally.

Cars were seen queuing in some gas stations in the capital Jakarta after the announcement.

Pertamina, Asia's biggest gasoline importer, has already deferred some of its gasoline deliveries for September ahead of the price hike, due to an expected drop in fuel demand, traders said.

Decades ago, Indonesia was once a major oil exporter, becoming a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the 60s, but its oil output has since declined and it turned out to be a net oil importing country in the 2000s. Indonesia is still an exporter of gas, however.