Alfitria Nefi Pratiwi, Jakarta – Indonesia's Ministry of Trade revealed that no garlic imports realization has been recorded thus far.
"We have coordinated with the Director General of Foreign Trade, and as of January 14, there has been no import realization at all," said the ministry's Director of Domestic Market Development, Nawandaru Dwi Putra, as quoted from an online broadcast on Monday, January 19, 2026.
Nawandaru urged importers to make haste on purchasing garlic from producing countries – which means China for the most part.
The suggestion was made considering around 90-95 percent of domestic garlic needs are met through foreign purchases.
But Nawandaru revealed that the lack of garlic imports realization is attributed to the surveyors still conducting checks on imported goods, resulting in no surveyor's report issued yet for garlic importers.
Meanwhile, garlic shipment from China could take up to two or three weeks, meaning purchases made this week will not enter Indonesia until the first week of Ramadan.
Nawandaru also asked the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Food Agency to leverage government garlic reserves as intervention measures.
Furthermore, to ensure the national garlic supply and phase out import dependency, Nawandaru called on importers to optimize the 5 percent mandatory planting policy. "This is important because the domestic garlic demand is sky-high," he said.
The Ministry of Trade reported that garlic prices have been on the rise since November. This month, Nawandaru stated that the retail price of kating garlic was recorded at Rp39,300 per kilogram, up 2.34 percent from December 2025. Similarly, honan garlic was priced at Rp39,800, raised 2.84 percent compared to December 2025.