Industrial Confidence Index Rises To 53.05 In March 2024, Ramadan Moment Triggers

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry Febri Hendri Antoni Arif. (Photo: Theresia Agatha/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) reported that the industrial confidence index (IKI) in March 2024 was at 53.05.

"Industrial confidence index (IKI) in March 2024 reached 53.05, an increase of 0.49 points compared to February 2024 of 52.56," said Ministry of Industry Spokesperson Febri Hendri Antoni Arif to VOI, Thursday, March 28.

Febri said that the increase in IKI value in March was influenced by the increase in IKI value in product and order inventory variables.

It is known, the value of IKI product inventory variables increased by 1.35 points or experienced a high expansion of 55.63 and was the highest since IKI was released in November 2022.

He assessed that this condition shows that the processing industry products are optimally absorbed in the market, especially the domestic market.

"The momentum of Ramadan is one of the drivers of optimal absorption of industrial products, considering that since early 2024 the instability of global economic conditions has suppressed orders and production of the Indonesian manufacturing industry," said Febri.

In addition, the value of the new order variable IKI also increased its expansion by 1.11 points to 54.25.

The increase was due to the stable condition of the United States and China, which are Indonesia's main trading partners.

According to Febri, when viewed based on the sub-sector, the increase in IKI value in March was also influenced by 15 sub-sectors of the manufacturing industry and the existence of four sub-sectors that experienced a change in level to expansion.

"Thus, the number of sub-sectors that experienced an expansion became 21 sub-sectors with a contribution to GDP in 2023 of 96.20 percent. The sub-sectors experiencing contraction are the textile industry sub-sector and the wood industry, wood goods and barges," he said.

Furthermore, Febri said, the largest value of IKI's expansion was still obtained by the beverage industry and followed by the food industry which experienced an increase in the value of IKI by 0.94 points.

This figure exceeds the pharmaceutical, chemical and traditional medicine industries.

The general condition of business activities this March, said Febri, decreased slightly compared to February 2024.

This can be seen from the percentage of respondents' answers who answered that their business conditions had increased and stabilized, down from 76.8 percent to 76.4 percent.

Even so, Febri said, business actors over the next six months said they were optimistic that the percentage of optimism confidence rose to 72.3 percent from the previous 71 percent.

"Some of the dominant factors of optimism for business actors are the existence of central government policies/regulations, global economic/market conditions as well as better domestic economic/market conditions," he added.