Gaikindo: The Automotive Industry Recovers When The Pandemic Drops To Endemic Status

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Association of Automotive Industries (Gaikindo) considers that the national automotive industry can only recover after the current status of the COVID-19 pandemic has decreased to an epidemic. This is because vehicle sales and production are vulnerable to activity restrictions during the pandemic.

For your information, a pandemic is an epidemic that spreads throughout the country quickly and massively. While endemic is a disease that only spreads in a certain region or country.

Chairman of Gaikindo Yohannes Nangoi explained that as long as the pandemic has not been handled properly, entrepreneurs have not been able to project when the automotive industry will start to thrive.

However, Nangoi still has a lot of hope that the automotive industry will recover. This is because the government continues to boost vaccination rates.

"Hopefully this pandemic can be controlled so that it becomes an epidemic or the name is only sectoral, of course, the automotive industry then can recover", he said in a virtual discussion, Thursday, August 19.

Nangoi revealed that the national automotive industry was hit hard by the outbreak. In fact, sales are predicted not to touch the figure of 750 thousand units until the end of 2021.

Furthermore, Nangoi said that before the pandemic, annual sales touched 1 million units. Meanwhile, in 2022, Gaikindo is still unable to estimate how the sales projection will be.

"So when we talk about 2021, our hope that the figure of 750 thousand will be achieved is still quite heavy, frankly, we have not projected what sales in 2022 will be like", he said.

Meanwhile, the government has targeted a reduction in the status of a pandemic to an epidemic in 2022. This target will be achieved by increasing vaccinations and implementing strict health protocols in every community activity.

Based on a report from the World Health Organization (WHO) on June 15, 2021, the spread of COVID-19 is still difficult to end in the near future. One effort that might happen in the near future is to reduce its status to an epidemic.