Holiday Ayo - The conflict between Ukraine and Russia is considered to be disrupting the supply of wheat. This can have an impact on the price of derivative products including instant noodles.

However, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto said that the war between Russia and Ukraine did not have a significant impact on the Indonesian economy.

Indonesia's trade transactions with Russia and Ukraine are only about 2 billion US dollars per year, so they are not Indonesia's main trading partners. This condition made the impact of the war not be felt directly by Indonesia.

However, the war still has the potential to disrupt the supply of wheat in Indonesia, which is one of the raw materials for making noodles. It is known that 40 percent of domestic wheat needs are imported from Ukraine.

"The impact can be felt on the supply of wheat because 40 percent of our wheat needs are imported from Ukraine," he said at the opening of the Indonesian Pavilion at the 2022 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, quoted from tribunnews.com, Monday (23/5).

He explained that the disruption of wheat supply could have an impact on rising commodity prices, which could lead to an increase in instant noodle prices. So with this condition, it is very possible for instant noodle companies to increase the selling price of their products.

"This will have an impact on instant noodle companies, so they may increase the price of their products. Then this will cause inflation from noodles, even though in the last 3 years instant noodle inflation has approached zero percent," explained Airlangga.

Nevertheless, efforts have been made to maintain the domestic supply of wheat. He said that Indonesia had suppressed enough import contracts to meet wheat needs at least until September 2022.

Airlangga said that currently the increase in food prices is one of the challenges faced by most countries in the world. The global economic turmoil made the prices of a number of main food commodities rise.

However, according to him, Indonesia is quite lucky because the impact of food inflation is not too big. This is because, in the last three years, Indonesia has succeeded in becoming self-sufficient in rice, which is the staple food of the Indonesian people.