Public information
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Common questions about GIMNI and Indonesia's vegetable oil industry.
What is GIMNI?
GIMNI stands for Gabungan Industri Minyak Nabati Indonesia — the Indonesian Vegetable Oil Industry Association, the national association of Indonesia's vegetable oil industry. GIMNI serves as a hub for information, advocacy and collaboration for companies in the sector. The association was established on 12 December 2006 for an indefinite period and currently has 44 member companies.
What are GIMNI's role and objectives?
GIMNI acts as a unifying body for Indonesia's vegetable oil industry and as a partner to the government. Its main objectives include:
- bringing together vegetable oil industry companies;
- uniting businesses in Indonesia's vegetable oil industry;
- acting as a partner to the central and regional governments in policy-making.
To support this role, GIMNI develops activities in information, promotion, marketing, advocacy, mediation, consultation and discussion.
What is vegetable oil?
Vegetable oil is oil extracted from parts of plants, usually seeds, fruits or nuts, and used both for food and for industrial applications. The main vegetable oils traded globally include palm oil, soybean oil, rapeseed/canola oil and sunflower oil.
Vegetable oils have many uses, including cooking oil, raw materials for the food industry (margarine, shortening), oleochemicals, cosmetics, soap and biofuels (biodiesel). Indonesia is one of the world's largest producers and exporters of vegetable oil, mainly because of its position as a leading palm oil producer.
How is palm oil related to cooking oil?
Palm-based cooking oil is produced along a processing chain: fresh fruit bunches (FFB) are processed into crude palm oil (CPO), and the CPO is then refined and fractionated into ready-to-use cooking oil. Most cooking oil sold in Indonesia is made from palm oil (olein), so domestic cooking oil prices are strongly influenced by CPO supply and prices.
Palm cooking oil is generally sold in two forms: bulk (unbranded) cooking oil without retail packaging, and branded packaged cooking oil. Domestic cooking oil prices are affected by international CPO prices, the exchange rate, production and distribution costs, and government policies on domestic supply. To keep cooking oil available and affordable, the government has used instruments such as the Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) and the Domestic Price Obligation (DPO).
What is Minyakita?
Minyakita is a government-initiated brand of packaged cooking oil for the general public, created to provide affordable cooking oil in simple packaging. The programme aims to supply cooking oil of standard quality at an affordable price to the wider public, as a more hygienic and pre-measured alternative to bulk (unbranded) cooking oil.
Minyakita is made from palm oil, making it a CPO derivative, and is sold in retail packaging (including pouches/plastic and small sizes) under a standardised brand. The programme runs under government supervision with a maximum retail price (HET) to keep it affordable for consumers, and its supply is linked to the Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) policy.
What is CPO?
CPO (crude palm oil) is the oil extracted from the fruit flesh (mesocarp) of the oil palm that has not yet been refined. CPO comes from the fruit of the oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis) and is reddish to orange in colour because of its natural carotenoid content; this colour is reduced by refining and bleaching.
CPO is further processed through refining, bleaching and deodorising (RBD) and separated into a liquid fraction (olein) and a solid fraction (stearin). It yields a wide range of derivative products, including cooking oil (olein-based), margarine and shortening (stearin-based), and raw materials for oleochemicals and biodiesel. Indonesia is the world's largest CPO producer, with plantation centres including Sumatra and Kalimantan.
How can a company become a GIMNI member?
GIMNI membership is based on the refining industry, covering vegetable oil processing in the form of vegetable oil refining (refineries and fractionation), kernel crushing plants (KCP) and copra crushing plants (CCP). Members are grouped into the categories Crushing, LB3 Recycling (hazardous waste recycling), Refinery, and Refinery & Crushing.
To apply, prospective members can email info.gimni@gimni.org. A Membership Application Form (PDF) is also available for download, after which the secretariat will contact the applicant with full details of the requirements and the application process. More information is available on the Membership page.
How can I contact GIMNI?
GIMNI can be contacted through the following official channels:
- Address: Multivision Tower, 6th Floor, Jl. Kuningan Mulia 9B, Kuningan, Jakarta 12980, Indonesia
- Email: info.gimni@gimni.org
- Telephone: +62 21 2938 0830
- Fax: +62 21 2938 0883
- Office hours: Monday–Friday, 09:00–17:00 WIB (UTC+7)
What is the CPO Reference Price (HR) and who sets it?
The CPO Reference Price (Harga Referensi, HR) is the benchmark price for crude palm oil exports set by the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia (Kemendag) through a Minister of Trade Decree (Kepmendag), usually at the end of each month for the following one-month period. The HR is calculated from the average CPO price on the domestic exchange, in Rotterdam and on the Malaysian exchange.
The HR is the basis for setting the export duty (bea keluar, set by Minister of Finance Regulation, PMK) and the export levy (pungutan ekspor, managed by the Oil Palm Plantation Fund Management Agency, BPDP, formerly BPDPKS): the higher the HR, the higher the rate bracket. The current HR, with its history and legal basis, is available on GIMNI's CPO Reference Price tracker.
What is the cooking oil DMO?
The DMO (Domestic Market Obligation) is a domestic supply requirement: producers and exporters of CPO and its derivatives must supply part of their output to meet domestic cooking oil needs — particularly the Minyakita programme, a government-backed cooking oil brand — as a condition for obtaining export rights. The government introduced the policy after the 2022 cooking oil crisis, and its terms (ratio, price and mechanism) have been adjusted several times through Minister of Trade Regulations (Permendag).
The latest DMO and cooking oil governance regulations can be found under the Cooking Oil & Downstream Consumer theme of the GIMNI regulations register (in Indonesian), and their effect on retail prices is monitored on the cooking oil price tracker.
What is the Minyakita maximum retail price (HET) and how much is it?
The HET (Harga Eceran Tertinggi, maximum retail price) is the ceiling on the retail selling price set by the government for Minyakita, the government-programme cooking oil brand. Since August 2024, the HET for Minyakita has been IDR 15,700 per litre (Minister of Trade Regulation (Permendag) No. 18 of 2024), up from IDR 14,000 per litre previously.
A comparison of actual retail prices against the HET — including the daily difference — is shown on GIMNI's cooking oil price tracker, based on data from the Ministry of Trade's SP2KP market monitoring system.
How is the CPO export levy (PE) calculated?
The export levy (Pungutan Ekspor, PE) is a plantation fund levy on exports of CPO and its derivatives, managed by the Oil Palm Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDP), formerly BPDPKS. The scheme has changed between regimes: until September 2024 the levy was a fixed rate (US$/MT), tiered according to Reference Price brackets; it was then changed to a percentage of the CPO Reference Price (HR), with lower rates for derivative products than for CPO to encourage downstream processing.
The levy rate for the current period, together with the export duty and its legal basis (PMK and BPDP provisions), is listed on GIMNI's CPO Reference Price tracker.
What is the difference between the Kemendag Reference Price, ICDX and World Bank CPO prices?
The three measure different things and should not be averaged: the Kemendag Reference Price (HR), set by the Ministry of Trade, is a regulatory export value (US$/MT) used as the basis for the export duty and export levy; ICDX/Bappebti prices are daily exchange and domestic spot transaction prices (IDR/kg) that reflect the physical market within Indonesia; and the World Bank (Pink Sheet) price is a monthly average of international market prices (US$/mt) used as a global comparison.
GIMNI shows all three side by side in separate panels — keeping their units and basis — on the CPO Reference Price tracker.