JAKARTA. PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk (AALI), a plantation company under Astra Group, recorded a 56% decline in its net profit in Q1 2021 compared to Q1 2020.
Mario Casimirus Surung Gulton, the Director of AALI, revealed that this decrease resulted from two primary factors. The first being the progressive levy at the end of 2020, while the second factor is the hedging strategies conducted by the company.
“We noticed that actually, last year’s levy only reached USD 55 per tonne. However, with this progressive levy emerging at the end of 2020, the CIF Rotterdam price would spare 30-40% for the levy,” Gulton claimed during a press conference today (27/5).
This levy regulation was exerted by the Minister of Finance in 2020. According to the Minister of Finance Regulation No.191, the levy for crude palm oil would be determined following the palm oil reference price.
Gulton was optimistic that his company’s poor performance due to the levy and hedging would not last and would stop by the end of the first half of the year. Then, its performance would improve in the next half. “The hedging would be completed in the first semester, so we might not do any more hedging in the second semester,” Gulton claimed. (KR/ZH)