Resilience in Global Rice Trade: Analyzing the Impact of India's Export Restrictions and the COVID-19 Pandemic on Indonesia's Rice Imports

This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and India's non-basmati rice export restrictions on Indonesia's rice import volume from India and Thailand from January 2018 to January 2025. The research uses the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method to evaluate both short-run and long-run effects of exchange rates, exchange rate volatility, industrial production index, and dummy variables for COVID-19 and export restrictions on rice imports. The results reveal that exchange rate and exchange rate volatility significantly influence rice imports, although their direction and strength vary between India and Thailand. The industrial production index is found to be insignificant in both time horizons. The COVID-19 dummy negatively affected rice imports from India in the long run, while its impact on imports from Thailand was not statistically significant. These findings highlight the importance of responsive rice import policies considering global disruptions, particularly pandemics and international trade regulations.