The Indonesian Textile Industry Is Still Under Pressure, The Ministry Of Industry Reveals The Culprit

Director General of Agro Industry of the Ministry of Industry Putu Juli Ardika (left) when met at the Ministry of Industry office, Jakarta, Monday, January 6. (Photo: Theresia Agatha/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) stated that the textile industry is still under pressure today.

This was conveyed by the Director General of Agro Industry at the Ministry of Industry Putu Juli Ardika when met at the Ministry of Industry office, Jakarta, Monday, January 6.

"This is what is under pressure, actually the textile industry," he said.

Putu said, one of the reasons why the industry is still contracting is due to the current import pressure.

"The textile (industry) is due to import pressure. So, for domestic-oriented industries, there are still a lot of imported products," said Putu.

"Meanwhile, for exporters, this is a global condition that is still not good," he continued.

He added that there are six other industrial sub-sectors that have not yet come out of the contraction level. Such as the wood industry, wood and plantation goods (excluding furniture), the rubber industry, rubber and plastic goods as well as the machinery and equipment industry that are not included in it.

Then, there is the motor vehicle industry, trailers and semi trailers, furniture industry and other processing industries.

Meanwhile, Acting (Plt) Director General of Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Textile Industries (IKFT) of the Ministry of Industry, Reni Yanita, said that the performance of the textile industry throughout 2024 is still under pressure from imported products and can only grow by about 1.84 percent. At the same time, the performance of the clothing industry managed to grow by 4.62 percent.

The finished clothing industry and the textile industry are sub-sectors of the textile and textile product industry or TPT. Thus, the performance of the TPT industry last year could only grow 3.23 percent on an annual basis.

According to Reni, the performance pressure was due to the late extension of the import duty for cloth security measures contained in the Minister of Finance Regulation (PMK) Number 48 of 2024.

The import duty rules for imported cloth expire in 2022, which is regulated in PMK Number 78 of 2021.

In other words, there is a protection gap of about 1.5 years for the national fabric industry.

Reni said that the time lag was used by importers and finished clothing factories in the tied area to use imported cloth.

Furthermore, Reni emphasized that the TPT industry must be protected by stakeholders considering its contribution to labor absorption in the manufacturing sector reaching 20 percent. The Ministry of Industry recorded that the total workforce in the TPT industry until August 2024 reached 3.97 million people, an increase of 5.59 percent on an annual basis.

"So if we don't protect (the textile industry workforce) by 20 percent, right, it's okay for our name to have a demographic bonus. Then, we also have workers (who have) skills for textiles. Right, it's a shame if we don't maintain it. Well, this is also a concern on how the policies taken by other ministries/agencies should also pay attention to this," he concluded.