Kontan Harian, 20 July 2018
Indonesian cooking oil producers stick to their opposition to the government’s mandatory programme to fortify all cooking oil products with vitamin A. They argue that the mandatory fortification may harm the industry and potentially raise legal dispute. Indonesian Vegetable Oil Refiners Association (GIMNI) Executive Director Sahat Sinaga said that the association rejected the policy because the producers need to import synthetic vitamin A to comply with the policy. Indonesia will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to import the vitamin A, he said on Thursday (July 19). Moreover, there is no guarantee that the vitamin A will stay intact when it reaches customers as the distribution process requires a long time and the vitamin A’s stability is uncertain. If the vitamin A level is below the requirement, the producers might be prosecuted, he said.