Preventing Textile Illegal Import Floods, The Ministry Of Industry Asks For This Instrument To Be Applicable Immediately

Textile industry (Photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - The national textile and textile product (TPT) industry contracted in June 2024. The government must immediately take serious steps to save the TPT industry from adversity.

Secretary of the Directorate General of Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Textile Industries (IKFT) of the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) Kris Sasono Ngudi Wibowo said, one of the main causes in the TPT industry is the rise of imported textile products which are often in the form of illegal goods.

The flood of imported products is considered to be getting worse since the Regulation of the Minister of Trade (Permendag) Number 8 of 2024 which has relaxed import activities.

As a result, the textile industry became the only sub-sector to experience contraction based on the Industrial Trust Index (IKI) from the Ministry of Industry in June 2024.

"Of the 23 sub-sectors photographed through this industrial confidence index (IKI) survey, one of them is contraction. The contraction is in the Directorate General of IKFT, especially in KBLI 13, namely the textile industry," Kris said as quoted on Friday, June 28.

As a rescue effort, the Ministry of Industry has written to the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) to formulate a security policy for several commodities, including TPT, through the Antidumping Import Duty (BMAD) and Security Import Duty (BMTP) instruments. The plan for the implementation of these two instruments was also discussed in a limited cabinet meeting (ratas) with President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) some time ago.

"We continue to have intense meetings with the Ministry of Finance and are still waiting for the results," he said.

Even so, there is no definite information on when the BMAD and BMPT will be implemented, including the amount of value. However, the Ministry of Industry hopes that the policy will take effect as soon as possible with the maximum amount.

The imposition of BMAD and BMTP is expected to reduce the import rate of illegal TPT products as well as to revive the utilization of the national TPT industry. Thus, the risk of termination of employment (PHK) in the textile industry can also be reduced.

For information, based on data from the Confederation of Nusantara Workers Unions, there are at least six textile factories that have gone out of business and caused more than 11,000 workers to be laid off.

The six textile factories are PT S Dupantex, PT Alenatex, PT Kusumahadi Santosa, PT Kusumaputra Santosa, PT Pamor Spinnning Mills and PT Sai Apparel.

Meanwhile, the West Java Province Textile Product Entrepreneurs Association noted that 22 factories have been closed in the area.