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Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Malaysia is ready to buy rice from Indonesia as part of its efforts to overcome the food crisis, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Dato Sri Mohamad Najib Tun Adbul Razak said on Monday evening.

"If Indonesia has a rice surplus, I hope Malaysia can buy it," Najib told ANTARA and Bernama at the VVIP room of Halim Perdanakusuma Airport before returning to Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian deputy prime minister said in their effort to overcome the food crisis, ASEAN member countries should show solidarity and help each other.

"Malaysia and other ASEAN countries need to exchange experience with Indonesia on how to overcome the food crisis and to reduce the oil subsidy," Najib said.

He said the food crisis in Malaysia was overcome through the supervision of certain food and goods prices.

"The prices of various kinds of food in Malaysia should be supervised in order not to be raised," he said, adding that the supervision of prices was made on super quality rice while that of other types of rice and food was given to market mechanism.

On a separate occasion, Vice President Jusuf Kalla expressed optimism that national rice production this year would surpass demand because of an increase in productivity per hectare.

Therefore, Najib expressed hope that beginning this year Indonesia would be able to meet its domestic need for rice in addition to exporting it.

Source