What Indonesia needs are simple and straightforward policies that will ensure affordability and availability of cooking oil, said Dr Fadhil Hasan, head of foreign affairs at the Indonesian Palm Oil Association .
Several measures then ensued, including dropping loads of subsidised stocks in the market, requiring producers to allocate at least a fifth of their products for domestic supply and telling producers to support price subsidies. None of these proved effective in bringing down the prices. The government found out that the bulk cooking oil that it sent to various locations were targeted by recalcitrant distributors who packaged the stocks into bottles, put labels on them and resold them at premium prices.export bans on all palm oil products that took effect on April 28.